The Trials of Thalia Grace and Milo Gena
by Julian928
Summary: Seven years after the events of the Last Olympian, Thalia and the Hunters of Artemis are fighting new monsters, all of them unheard of. Do the new creatures have anything to do with a strange, nature-loving boy with lava-orange eyes? Please review!
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a story that I and my friend, , are writing from Thalia Grace's point of view, and featuring what we hope to be a common character in future stories, Milo.**

**Disclaimer: We do not own the Percy Jackson novels. This is a recreational piece of fan-fiction that will use some of the characters and the world of ****Percy Jackson and the Olympians****. All Percy Jackson copyrights –to our knowledge- belong to Rick Riordan.**

It has been seven years since the second war with the titan lord Kronos. Percy is happily living with Annabeth in Manhattan, attempting a mortal life. She is still the chief architect of the new Olympus, and Percy just earned his Master's Degree in marine biology. Grover is traveling the world, spreading the will of Pan. Camp Half-Blood has been completely renovated, and there are more demigods than ever. Nico is the head counselor and teaches swordplay. Thalia still serves Artemis as lieutenant of the hunters, but has been missing the mortal world more and more. Western Civilization has achieved a shaky sense of peace, but peace cannot last forever…

I drew back my bowstring, eyeing the monster from the trees. "Can we shoot it, yet?" I whispered.

The preteen goddess next to me whispered back, "No. Hold your bow, Thalia." I kept the string taught, and it lifted its many heads, as though sniffing the air.

"It knows we're here." The hunters behind us shifted around, ready to open fire.

"Nonsense, it's looking for food." Artemis sounded certain, but I knew better.

"We count as food." I aimed and released the silvery arrow. It pierced the creature's back leg, and it howled loudly. It stood and let us get a good look at its enormous body. It was about fifteen feet tall and had 5 heads, all of them wolves on serpentine necks. Its blood-stained claws were as long as my forearm, at least, and the bronze turtle shell it was wearing glinted in the moonlight. The closest head sniffed the air again, and then looked right at me. It snarled, and moved faster than it should've been able to with its awkward body. It slammed into the trees between us and plowed them down.

"Thalia! I told you--"_Whump!_ The wolf-turtle careened into Artemis and sent the goddess flying. She disappeared with a small flash of light just before hitting a tree.

"Shoot it!" I yelled at the other hunters while cocking another arrow. Most of our shots glanced off its shell, and the few that hit its legs or heads didn't seem to do more than piss it off. I slapped the silver band on my wrist and Aegis spiraled out. I let the mace can I still had hidden in my belt extend to the spear I hadn't used in a few years. Electricity crackled through it when I wrapped my fingers around the shaft. The monster recoiled from the gorgon on the front of the shield, but then snarled and jumped over me. I spun around to be greeted by it mule-kicking me in the stomach. I hit the same tree Artemis did, but without the flashy exit. My back felt like it was on fire, but I stumbled back up when I heard a scream. It had slashed at one of the hunters and cut her bow in half, along with goring her hands.

I shouldered my spear and pelted it at the wolf-turtle. I heard a sickeningly wet thud as it went through its tailbone. The forest shook as the wolf-turtle hit the ground. It lay still for a few moments, as we silently approached, not expecting it to go as quietly as it did. I pulled my spear out of the monster and stepped back. The tip glistened in the moonlight. The monster turned into a satisfying gold dust pile, putting every hunter's mind at ease. Artemis came out of nowhere and stood next to me.

"I TOLD you to wait." She scolded.

"It attacked us though." I didn't like it when Artemis acted like some kind of mother.

"It attacked us because you shot it!" She grew a few feet and her eyes seemed to glow with silver fire. I stepped back, my hand quivered over the mace can. She looked at the other hunters, all of whom were frightened. She shrunk back down to her normal size. "I'm sorry Thalia. I… All these new monsters… I'm just a little high strung."

"Whatever. Tell me when you decide to set up camp." I stalked away into the forest. I started thinking of how I'd been feeling lately. The hunter thing was getting old, _very_ old. I missed the mortal world, camp, my friends, even my dad. Something was brewing. We'd been fighting all sorts of monsters that Artemis hadn't even heard of. Then an idea came to me; _a quest!_ The gods might be thinking about setting up a new quest to get to the bottom of it, and maybe I'd be part of it. The winter solstice was tomorrow, and if there was a time and place to give out a quest like this, it would be there. I sprinted toward the firelight of our camp and into Artemis's tent.

"Thalia, what is it?" She had been admiring her bow, but set it down and stood up when I came in panting.

I spoke between gasps for air. "Tomorrow…. the summit… at Olympus…. I want to go with you."

She looked deep in thought for a moment, then at spoke. "Very well, I suppose you could spend a little time with Zeus, and see your friends if they're there."

I smiled gratefully. "Thank you my lady, thank you." I walked out of her tent and into my own. I was asleep before my head hit the pillow.


	2. Chapter 2

I didn't fully understand my dream. I saw a boy, about my age physically, suspended in a void. He didn't seem scared or anything, just silently floating. I called out to him, but he didn't hear me. I looked around, and saw a weird shape near him. It was made of roiling shadow, and it seemed to be wrapped around something. I looked back at the boy, he drifted near me, and as he passed, he opened his eyes. They were beautiful. The color was almost lava orange, and there was such a strong spirit behind them. He smiled softly, and reached towards me. A powerful rumbling arose from the abyss, and he recoiled. He looked straight at me, as though into my soul, and began to speak. It was the same monstrous rumbling. Then the shadow shape moved, and he moved towards it. I knew it had to be something bad. He reached out, and it reached for him.

I woke up in a cold sweat. Who had been the boy with lava eyes? What was the shadow shape? I stretched, and looked in the mirror my tent occasionally contained. In seven years, the only thing that had changed about me was that I had silver highlights in my hair, I was wearing traditional hunter's garb, and Zoë's circlet adorned my spiky 'do. _Today's a day to go classic,_ I thought. I rummaged around and found my armor from Camp Half-Blood. _Too classic._ After more sifting, I decided that since this may very well be the last day to wear it, I would wear the full battle gear of a hunter. I stepped into the snowy forest. Cassie, the hunter whose hands had been injured, was almost recovered thanks to ambrosia cakes and some nectar. Artemis was watching the sunrise.

"He'll be here shortly." _Oh gods, I forgot to think about how I'd be getting there._ Apollo's blinding convertible began tearing across the sky. I looked away until he "parked". He stepped out of the driver's seat with his typical grin. I still think he's hot. Without a word, he opened the backseat door for Artemis and I to get in. She glared at her brother while walking around to the passenger side door. I slipped into the back and buckled up. He got back in the driver's seat while Artemis sat next to him, staring indignantly.

"Get ready for a ride sis." He smirked back at me, and I dug my nails into the leather seat. Apollo revved the engine, which sent flames spitting out around the car. I closed my eyes tight as the red death machine took to the air. I felt us accelerate, but didn't dare look down or back. After several hours of this, and a short nap on the way, Artemis shook me awake.

"Thalia, Olympus is in sight." She looked bored, very ready to get away from her brother. I rubbed my eyes and sat up straight.

"Wow." It was all I could say. The rebuilt kingdom of the gods was breathtaking. The city was completely rebuilt, and combined modern and Greek architecture flawlessly. Most of the gods' palaces had been rebuilt, and some of the minor gods were overseeing construction of palaces for themselves. Apollo hit a button on his dash that would normally apply to headlights, and the flames went out.

The car had become a chariot and landed gracefully on the ground in the sky. I exited through the right hand back door. The world was spinning slightly as I got my heart beat to settle down to a partially normal rate.

"PULL!" I spun around to see Ares shooting a jar of Greek fire as it sailed through the air. The blast wave knocked me back a little bit. Apollo got back into his chariot and took off to finish the day. Ares yelled again and almost missed the jar.

"Might wanna work on your aim, Ares." The speaker had just walked into the pavilion. He was a muscular young man with a good tan, and the smell of the sea on him. His hair was black with a gray streak running through it, and he had striking green eyes. He was wearing a deep blue Hawaiian shirt and khaki shorts with leather sandals.

"Wow," I muttered to myself. "The mortals must really be cleaning up the sea for Poseidon to look _that _good."

Ares was seething at the insult. "And you might want to mind that you're still mortal, _Perceus Jackson_.' Gasp.

Percy pulled out Anaklusmos, Riptide. The blade was actually a little longer now to compensate for his long arms. "This mortal's always ready to knock a war god's head in." He squared off in front of Ares, who pointed his trippy rifle back at him.

"Calm down you two!" A woman with honeysuckle blond hair and gray eyes stepped between them. She had blueprint rolls under her arm. "Percy, you know that it's disrespectful to challenge a god, and lord Ares," She looked straight down the barrel of his godly blunderbuss, "As it's the day of the Summit, and I just finished the pavilion, I'd be much obliged if you could keep it intact until next year at least."

He lowered the gun, but glared at Percy. Then back to the living armor that had been throwing the Greek fire. "Well, what are you waiting for? PULL!!!" He went back to blowing up jars. I gawked at Percy and Annabeth, now they just seemed to be younger looking versions of Poseidon and Athena, but with gray streaks in their hair.

They talked to each other quietly, smiling, then kissed. I could tell they were really in love. Percy moved to Annabeth's side, and in doing so, looked right over to where I was standing. His eyes widened. "Thalia?"

I came out of my daze "Huh?" Annabeth looked over at me as well. Before I could think blink or say another word they had basically tackled me with hugs. Percy was a lot stronger than he used to be, and picked both me and Annabeth up in a bear hug. "Need… air!" I rasped.

"Oh! Oops, guess I didn't really think about the fact you're only fifteen. Where have you been?! It's been years and now you just pop back up on Olympus? It's amazing!" He grinned at me and obviously restrained the urge to hug me again.

"Yeah, well, you know me. I'm a free bird, I go where I please." I tried to act aloof and cool.

"Mm hmm, a free bird… who's afraid of heights." He smirked at me. I glared at him and resisted the urge to zap him. Then it occurred to me: _Percy was older and stronger, meaning he could probably throw the Atlantic at me if he was pissed…. _I made a mental note to stay on his good side… for now.

Annabeth was still just smiling at me. I looked back.

"When did you stop being that cute little girl trying to hit me with a hammer?"

"Around the same time you traded an MP3 player for a silver bow and circlet, I guess." She hugged me again. I hugged her back tightly. It was so nice to be with family again.

Artemis drifted past our reunion and towards the throne room. We followed her and stood outside the door while the Olympian council settled into their thrones. I glanced around the room, but my eyes stopped on the god sitting at the head. He wore a blue pinstripe suit and had salt and pepper hair and facial hair. I could smell the ozone he put off from here. _Dad_, I thought. Eventually, Apollo appeared in his throne and the council began.


	3. Chapter 3

The gods argued about everything from who would plan the Summer solstice festival to whether or not Grover was up to snuff being the Lord of the Wild.

Aphrodite was arguing one of her aimless points over beauty. "Well I think that all female mortals should just start out blond. It makes so much sen---" A scream racked the halls of Olympus. It was deep-voiced and incredibly pained.

"That sounded bad." The hot god points out the obvious. Thank you, Lord of 'No, duh!'

My father took charge, which makes sense since he's the king of the gods and all. "Find out what that was… NOW!" Yeah, my dad, the godly poet-genius.

All the gods but Zeus disappeared in flashes of light, presumably to different parts of the world. Dad got out of his throne, became normal sized, and walked towards Percy, Annabeth and I. He turned on his heel and looked at me. "Thalia."

"Father."

"Are you… Happy, in the hunters?"

"Yes."

"You're lying."

"How would you know?"

"I'm the king of the gods, you're my daughter, you can hide nothing from me. I can read your thoughts like a picture book." That was a frightening concept.

He continued walking and started up a conversation with some of the minor gods, Nemesis among them, with Ethan's eye patch hanging from her belt. I looked at Percy and Annabeth, not really sure what to say. I didn't have to, because someone tackled me. I felt a hard slam at my side, and whoever it was grappled me until we hit the ground. I looked at the attacker, ready to zap them into a charred piece of celestial bacon.

"I can't believe it's you!" Grover hugged me more and pulled me up. I wasn't used to all this fuzzy goodness, leastwise from someone who was actually fuzzy from the waist down. Grover didn't seem at all different. He still had vague wisps of a beard, and hooves for feet. His horns seemed a little bigger.

"Well start believing it and stop tackling me." Despite my annoyance I was happy to see him again. "Where's Juniper?"

"Back at camp. She and the other Dryads can't go far as it is, let alone in the winter." Oh yeah, tree spirit, right, Thalia have good think brains. "What was the scream I heard? Argus and I had just gotten here when we heard it. A bunch of windows on the Empire State Building shattered."

Percy responded. "We don't know. Zeus sent out the council and a bunch of spirits to find out."

"Blaa-ha-ha! It was really freaky." Grover had kept his goaty habit throughout the years.

"I gotta get back to work. It was great seeing you again Thalia, you too Grover. Come home with me and Percy tonight, we'll all catch up." Annabeth picked up the blueprints she'd left leaned against a wall and kissed Percy. She jogged off to continue her redesigning of the godly city. We wouldn't get back to their apartment that night.

Percy and Grover started jabbering at each other. I thought about looking for Artemis, but then remembered she was on the hunt for the screamer.

I listened to them talk about their respective relationships and recent accomplishments. I was just about ready to start complaining when there was a flash in the throne room. Aphrodite, the goddess of love, appeared, covered in dirt and obviously very annoyed by the fact. Percy's and Grover's mouths dropped open at the sight of her. I clapped them shut and we all sprinted to the goddess while she redid her hair.

"Milady, what happened?" Aphrodite looked at me with an annoyed expression, then seemed to remember why she was covered in dirt.

"I found where the scream came from. I tried to help, but I almost broke a nail."

Percy's hero-sense clicked on. "Take us there."

"Very well." She held out one dainty hand for us. We all grabbed on and zipped off.


	4. Chapter 4

I think I turned green, both during the trip and after we landed. See, the gods don't teleport, they just fly really frickin' fast! I tried to get my bearings when Aphrodite touched her heels to the rocky ground. After a quick look at the abyssal black rubble, it all came back to me. This was Mount Tamalpais, formerly the replacement to the Titan stronghold, and the place where Zoë Nightshade had made her last stand.

"HELP ME!" I looked deeper into the rubble. The Titan Atlas was there, holding up the sky, but he wasn't holding it on his shoulders. The weight was digging into his back and he was laying flat, obviously in pain.

We all ran to him. As a group, the prissy goddess excluded, we tried to help the Titan to his feet, but he was struggling, and seemed to be trying to angle us to push the weight off on someone. We managed to get him onto his hands and knees, but it was impossible to help him stand up, the weight was too extreme.

Grover knelt next to the Titan. "Atlas, who did this?"

Atlas was too tired and pained to yell at him. "Two creatures I've never known existence of. Assaulted me and tried to knock me from my place. I would've gone willingly, but neither were interested in taking the weight, so the curse of the gods bound me here. The sky grazed the grass for but a second, though it was enough to scare those two things off." I heard rustling in the bushes behind us.

I slapped Aegis and the shield spiraled to life, my mace can became a spear, once again crackling with energy. It, too, remembered the mountain. Grover whimpered, and everyone else turned to look, as well. I fired a small lightning bolt into them, lighting the leaves on fire. A figure emerged from the flames, completely unscathed. He was wearing a white… skirt thing. It looked like something ancient Greek commoners would wear around the house, but without the tunic top. He had a head of dark gold hair, and lava orange eyes. He was muscular, but not buff, more like a sinewy and lean strength. He looked at us wide-eyed. Atlas stopped grunting and complaining, and looked at the boy from the fire with awe on his face.

"It… it cannot be." The Titan looked squarely at the boy, but his attention wasn't back at Atlas. The young man from my dream looked squarely at me, and he smiled. He had an innocent face, unscarred, but not what I would call hot or cute. I would call someone like him beautiful. Atlas cried out again, his focus back on his curse.

The strange boy walked towards the Titan, looking sympathetic to his pain. He looked at the Titan and the funnel from the sky, his brow furrowed and his arms crossed, probably thinking. He smiled again, nodded, and clapped his hands. I didn't know what to expect. A powerful shockwave rippled out, knocking all of us but Aphrodite and Atlas onto our butts. A pillar of plant filled rock shot up from the ground, hitting Atlas in the face and forcing him onto his feet. He once again held his weight as he always had.

I was surprised when Atlas nodded almost thankfully to the strange boy, who bowed to him, still smiling. He looked back to us.

"Who are you?" Grover walked towards him cautiously. The boy looked quizzical, and his brow furrowed again.

"Name, what is your name?" Percy sheathed Riptide, which he'd brought out reflexively after the shockwave. He also took a cautious step forward. Again, the boy just seemed puzzled. I also walked towards him, closer than the others.

He softened again, and looked at me with what I guess was awe. I slapped Aegis to close the shield, but in doing so, inadvertently flailed my spear at him. I expected him to recoil from it, but it simply passed through him. It didn't turn to vapor like it would a mortal; it was almost like his skin just… _parted_ for it. He kept looking at me with the same innocent and wondering expression.

I patted my chest. "Thalia." I said slowly. He pointed at me.

"Thalia." His voice was a little deep and smooth. It sounded like he was someone who could sing if he tried, and get on anyone's good side just by talking.

Percy and Grover both stepped forward, and mimicked my technique. He picked up on it quickly and smiled when we showed he'd gotten it right. I pointed at him. He looked down, and moved his lips as if trying to sound out a word. Finally, he looked at me balefully and shrugged.

I backed up a little and whispered to Percy. "My, oh my, what a strange super guy."

He perked up at my words. "My-lo?" His eyed widened and he smiled again. "Milo!"

Aphrodite walked towards all of us with her feet about an inch off the ground. She was afraid her shoes would get dirty. "So his name's Milo. My, my, my, what a specimen of beauty." She practically lunged at him, and started playing with his face, stretching his cheeks with her hands, and rubbing his skin around. "He's so cute!"

I felt like an idiot about the next thing I did, but Aphrodite messing with Milo just bothered me. I focused hard, and a gust of wind blew her hairdo into disarray. Milo's hair flew back, but fell back in place. It was then I noticed that his hair actually went down to the base of his back. He grinned excitedly, as though it was the most interesting thing that had ever happened to him.

Grover and Percy both whispered at once. "What _is_ he?"

"I think he's a half-blood, maybe a son of Demeter or something." I murmured back. Milo looked at us, again quizzical. Aphrodite was fixing her hair and glaring at me. "We should take him to camp, Chiron will know something…. I hope."

Milo ran back to the still burning bush, just as Percy decided it would be a good idea to douse the flames. He was soaked from head to toe with water out of the nearest river.

"Oops, sorry." Percy chuckled, and dried him off with another wave of his hand. Milo seemed pleased with the two sensations, and reached into the bush. He pulled out a nine-foot staff made of gnarled, but sturdy wood. He walked up to me, still smiling, and leaned on it like a walking stick.

"Guess he's ready to go!" Grover clapped his hands together and forced a smile. He turned towards the now redone goddess. "Lady Aphrodite, would you be kind enough to take us to Camp Half-Blood?"

She sighed sharply and rolled her eyes. "I suppose." She held out her hand again. I grabbed on, and Milo gripped her wrist right next to me. We exploded into the air in the blink of an eye.

Aphrodite left us at the Big House, and presumably returned to Olympus. Dionysius and Chiron were playing pinochle with a boy who looked remarkably like Hades. It could only be Nico. He wore a camp T-shirt and black jeans. A pair of skeletal warriors filled the other two chairs at the table, apparently trying to play as well.

Mr. D regarded us with a bored expression. "Who's the nudist?"

Percy turned Milo toward the card players. "His name is Milo. We think he's a half-blood, maybe a son of Demeter."

The god shrugged. "Am I supposed to care?" I'd forgotten how annoying he was. Chiron stood in his full centaur form. He looked Milo up and down, gently plodding his front hooves as he inspected him.

"Well," he said at last. "I suppose he should watch the orientation video like everyone else.

Grover caught Chiron before he dragged Milo into the Big House. "There's just one thing, he doesn't seem to speak English."

Chiron pursed his lips and looked at Milo again, who was staring at Peleus amusedly as the dragon snoozed under the giant pine, _my_ pine. I shook away the thoughts of my time as a tree. "I know a few ways to teach him quickly, I don't expect you'll see him again for a few days, but he'll hopefully be more prepared for all this by then." The ageless teacher led Milo into the giant blue building, and closed the door behind them.

"I have to get back to the city. Annabeth and I will check up on you as soon as we can." Percy said as he stretched.

"We only _look_ like teenagers, Percy." I crossed my arms and set my legs apart a little. Grover tried to look tough, but failed olympically.

"Ha, you're right. I guess I forget sometimes." He walked toward the water, and dove in.

"I'm gonna go see Juniper, see you later!" Grover bounded towards the forest.

Nico gave me a small wave and a shy smile. "Hey, Thalia, it's good to see you again."

I nodded at him and walked off to Artemis cabin. I thought about going to Zeus cabin, but Artemis cabin's interior was more like the tent I'd been living in for several years. When I got inside, I found a bag with all of my belongings in it on a bed, and a note pinned to it. I undid the silver pin and unfolded the paper.

It read:

_Thalia,_

_I've decided that you're officially on vacation from the hunters. Do some training, spend time with your friends, and just enjoy yourself. Remember, NO BOYS._

_Artemis_

I smiled, happy at the thought of the goddess looking out for me like this. I just hoped that she and the other hunters could deal with all the new monsters without me. I laughed at the part about no boys, as if I hadn't lived by that for years.

I looked at the clock; it was about time for dinner. I changed into my old clothes and walked down to the pavilion. It was lonely at Zeus table. Despite the pact being undone, none of the Big Three had had any more children yet. I took a big piece of the half rack of ribs we'd been given and tossed it into the flames in honor of Zeus. As an afterthought, I threw in the ripest looking cherry tomato for Artemis, and all of my salad (I don't like salad) for Hestia. I could have sworn I saw two red eyes peer out at me from the fire.

After dinner, I grudgingly joined the sing-along, but it was still nice to be with these crazy demigods again.


	5. Chapter 5

I stumbled exhaustedly to the Artemis cabin. One more second and I would be happily asleep in a soft bed-

"Thalia!" Ugh. I turned around to see Nico, running.

"Yeah?" I replied. I mean, I was pretty excited to see him, after all, we'd been through a lot. He'd really grown up. I thought he was kinda cute an-- _NO! Thalia, pull it together! You can't like him! You are a hunter, not some Aphrodite girl! _

"How are you?" he asked. I wanted to talk to him but come on! I felt like I was going to faint on the spot!

"Um, I'm okay, I guess. I'm really tired though."

"Oh, yeah, you're going to bed and I…. Yeah, well, I should go, then."

"No! I mean, you don't have to. I don't mind talking. It's been a while so, we should take some time and catch up." _Even if I do want to pass out_. I couldn't pass up hanging out with my old friend, right? That's not weird, is it? Hmm.

We walked onto the porch and I sat down on one of the silver stools that were unused save for when the hunters stayed here. He stood awkwardly as if the stools were sacred. He ended up just leaning against the railing.

"Well I was just wondering if I could get your advice on something." He said even more awkwardly.

"Yeah?" I said wishing that we could just stay like this for hours.

"Well there's this girl I really like." Oh. "I was wondering if you could help me out."

"Alright. Tell me about her." I said, trying to play the whole thing off cool.

"Well her name is Rowan, and she's in Hestia cabin. She's just so, well…" He started rambling and I tuned him out. After a few minutes he seemed to be wrapping up. "…it's like she completes me, but she might not even know I exist."

"Well, I---" He cut me off.

"You're right Thalia, I'll just tell her how I feel and hope for the best. You're awesome." He leaned in and kissed me on the cheek, then disappeared in a cloud of shadows. I stood up stiffly and walked into Artemis cabin. I guess I'm fine with the idea. Annabeth and Luke had always felt like family, and Nico and Percy were like family too, _really_ distant cousins would be a good title for them. There wasn't a boy problem as far as I could tell. I crawled into my bunk, and fell asleep.

Milo made his grand reappearance a few days later. Chiron introduced him to the camp at breakfast. They'd cut his hair and out him in a camp shirt and khaki shorts. He was fidgeting though, as if the clothes didn't agree with him. His eyes caught mine, and they seemed to glow.

"Everyone, this is Milo. He's a currently unclaimed half-blood, as far as we can tell." Chiron didn't seem convinced of that last part himself, but no one questioned him. "He doesn't know English very well, so please, don't pressure him too much."

"What does he speak if he doesn't know English?" An Athena camper piped up.

"He seems to be fluent in Italian, and Latin, and Greek, both modern and ancient." He looked around. "Shawn!" He said, pointing to a burly Ares boy. "Please help Milo around and teach him a little more about our classes. If you have any trouble, come see me."

Shawn grumbled, but walked up and brought Milo back to the Ares table. He sat down with his usual smile.

"Anyway, I know everyone's hungry, so," He raised his glass. "To the gods!"

I gave my offering at the fire and sat back down at Zeus table. Shawn and the other Ares campers were starting to make fun of Milo, who was looking at them calmly. "Let's see what kinda stuff we can make him drink." He laughed to his cabin-mates. He picked up Milo's glass and said "Liquid bacon." The glass filled with a sickly looking brown sludge. He handed it to Milo, who looked at it then downed it in a gulp. He set the glass back down and looked at Shawn.

"Kids got taste buds of steel," another Ares boy said. "Maybe he'll like this too: toilet water." The glass filled with a blue-ish water and they handed it to Milo again, who downed it in another expressionless gulp. "Fine… blood!" The glass filled with ruby-red liquid, and they handed it to Milo again. I stood up and went over to the table. I grabbed the goblet out of Milo's hands and set it down.

"Leave him alone."

Shawn guffawed. "What're you gonna do about it? Not go out with me?" He and his friends all laughed.

Little tendrils of static electricity started jumping off of my hands. Shawn glared at me. "You think a little shock will stop me? I'm the son of Ares, and nothing can hold me back!" He stepped away from the table and got right in my face. He towered over me, a good six and a half feet tall. I faced up to him, and glared right back into his eyes. I hit his chest and gave him a solid shock; he just frowned and looked at me. "How dare you." He shoved me away from their table and into the grass.

He stalked toward me, and I got ready to fry him. Shawn suddenly lurched forward, his face smashed into the ground. Milo stood behind him with his arm twisted, effectively immobilizing the gorilla of a boy. "You will not hurt Thalia." He said calmly. I noticed a slight accent, Greek, maybe?

The colossus that was Shawn struggled against this six-foot stick of a guy, but eventually gave up. "Fine, just let me go." Milo let go of his arm and even helped him up. Shawn glared at him. "Don't expect me to help you out today. Have your girlfriend over there do it." He jerked a thumb at me.

Chiron galloped over after Shawn had sat back down. Milo had helped me up and was dusting me off. I felt kind of awkward, getting help from this seemingly innocent person. "I'm sorry I didn't break that up, Mr. D wanted to see how you and Milo would fair." He looked at Milo, who looked back as calm as ever. "Apparently you have some talent when it comes to melee combat."

"May-lee cam-bet?"

"Fighting." Chiron corrected himself. Milo shuddered at the word.

"I not fight, I just help. Thalia need help, so I help her." He said this like it should be common knowledge.

"Indeed, though I would still like to train you in comba--- erm, fighting, but using things other than your hands." Chiron patted Milo on the shoulder, gave me an inquiring look, and trotted away.

Milo looked at me. "You will show me around camp, or I find other?"

"Sure. Come on." I grabbed his arm gently and led him towards the rock wall. I showed him how it worked, and then did a quick run with small amounts of lava. He watched me intently, and when I got back down, he applauded. "Thanks, but I'm pretty rusty. I used to be able to do that with full lava."

"Lava is the water-fire, yes?" He asked.

"Yes, lava is the water-fire." I turned it down to nothing.

"I want to try with, um, what is word… all lava!" He grinned and nodded enthusiastically.

"Milo, that might hurt you. I don't want you getting burned on your first day here."

"Burned?"

"Hurt by fire."

"Oh! Fire not hurt me." He pulled a pack of matches out of his pocket and lit one with his teeth. He moved his finger through the fire. I just gawked. Once he felt he'd made his point, he put it out and pocketed the nub.

"Umm, okay." I turned the lava to full. He got some basic foot and hand holds and breathed deeply. Then he _really_ freaked me out. He bounded up the wall like some kind of monkey. At one point he actually swung off of a jutting hold one-handed and flipped high into the air, catching another hand hold and continuing his climb. In less than two minutes he was sitting at the top.

"I do good?" His voice carried down.

"Yeah, now come down Milo!" I yelled back. _Scary good_. He jumped down and rolled on landing, then popped to his feet with a flourish. I guess it made sense. One god or another had traits just like that, and hopefully he'd be claimed soon.

I took him around to the forges, the stables, and the chariot track. Everything amazed him, but watching the warriors train at the arena seemed to bother him deeply.

I put my hand on his shoulder. "What's wrong?"

"They are fighting, but who is helped by it?" He crossed his arms and looked at the swordsmen sadly. "They make nothing but pain." He turned his back to them and walked away… into the forest. I chased after him, and pulled him back.

"Milo, you can't go in the forest unarmed. We do capture the flag and things like that in there, but there are monsters roaming everywhere. It's really dangerous."

"Monsters?"

"Evil, bad things, that only want to fight and kill. The people back there, they fight them, and kill them. That's how they help."

"Maybe they fight and kill us because we fight and kill them." He was so steadfast about this whole thing. He really believed that no good could come from combat, and some part of me thought he was right.


	6. Chapter 6

Milo quickly became accustomed to camp life, but he refused to practice fighting with anything but his staff, which he never delivered fatal blows with. The Ares cabin had no particular love for him, but that wasn't unusual. The Athena campers listened to his peaceful words whenever he bothered to speak them. That was something worth noting; Milo didn't speak if he could help it. He also didn't use his demigod powers when he could help it. All in all, Milo didn't really have trouble with anyone… Until Aphrodite cabin noticed that he was good-looking.

I had just been laying in the grass in the chariot track before dinner. I loved looking at the sky like this, because I couldn't experience it from high up without freezing up. I heard the patter of rapid footsteps coming closer. I lilted my head to my right. I could see a sideways Milo, shirtless, for some reason, sprinting in my direction. He vaulted over me and kept running. At first I thought he was just running, then I looked over again. The entire Aphrodite cabin was charging in my direction. I hopped to my feet and scrambled out of the way.

"There's Thalia, come on guys, makeover time!" An especially feminine boy yelled. I sprinted after Milo without another thought.

It was hard to catch up to him, but the Aphroditites (as I began to call them) were relentless. I finally caught up to him. He was still sprinting but hadn't even broken a sweat. He nodded at me, and kept running. We made for the forest, hoping the prisses would fear the dirt and leaves enough to stop chasing us. We were right, but it wasn't until we were in the very heart of the woods that we stopped.

Milo stood on a rock next to a big marsh, looking behind us for our pursuers. I fell to the ground and started panting, using my powers over wind to get more air in my lungs. Milo jumped down and knelt next to me. He helped me sit up against the rock and picked debris out of my hair.

"Where's your shirt?"

"They hide-walk to me, try and grab me, I run, but lose shirt."

I guess that meant that they snuck up on him and tried to grab him, but he wriggled out of his shirt and ran. He smiled at me. "You are tired?"

"Yes. Very." I panted. He pulled a canteen off of his overstocked tool belt, which he'd been wearing lately. He put it to my lips and I took a small drink of the clear, cool water inside. He let me take the canteen and sat down next to me.

"So pretty out here." He mused.

"Yeah, I guess so." How a swamp could be pretty baffled me, but he seemed to be a child of nature itself. I took a few more drinks, and gave him back his water. He took a sip, then tied it back to his belt.

"You are god-child? Like me?"

"Yeah, Zeus is my dad."

"Zeus?"

"King of the gods and the sky."

His brow furrowed again. "Your language is so funny to me." He shrugged, then leaned back and relaxed.

"Do you know who your parents are?"

"I don't know their names, but I know they are there." Then it hit me; Milo was an orphan. Not like me and most of the others, but a real orphan, fending for himself his whole life.

"Milo, where do you come from?"

"I don't know the name. It was a place with beautiful houses. Flowers and white everywhere. I not have one, but I like to look."

"It sounds nice."

"It is, but I do not miss."

"Why not?"

"Because I have home here. I have house, I have people who like me. I never have been so happy." He grinned ear to ear at me. It was like that for most half-bloods, but it must be more like Tyson coming here for Milo. He really hadn't had anyone before, until he met Percy… and me.

We stayed there for a while. He asked me questions, I answered them. For some reason I was comfortable opening up to him. He looked at the roof of trees after I don't know how long.

"It is almost midnight, we go back now." He stood up, and held out his hand to me. I got up without it, and together we walked back through the forest. Mr. D was waiting for us in the pavilion.

"I don't suppose you thought about inconveniencing me when you ran off, did you?"

"No Mr. D. We were run after by Aphrodite's people. I am sorry we bother you." Milo even seemed to like Dionysius.

The god grunted. "Well, just remember that if you ever do it again, you'll spend the next week cleaning with the harpies and thinking you're a Chihuahua."

Milo looked at me and mouthed "Chihuahua?" I shook my head at him and mouthed "later."

Mr. D disappeared in a flash of light, much like Artemis had done a few weeks ago. I started walking towards my cabin. Milo walked with me and we talked about Chihuahuas and dogs in general the whole way. We finally got there, and he waved goodbye. I walked inside and realized I was in Zeus cabin. _How did I get this sidetracked?_ I went back outside and jogged to Artemis cabin. As I opened the door to go inside, I chanced a glance at Hermes cabin, where Milo should've been staying. He was at the door, his hand ready to knock, when it dropped to his side. He walked off and towards the pavilion. I couldn't help but follow.

He got there, and sat at Apollo table. He bowed his head for a few moments, and the god suddenly appeared on the opposite side.

Milo looked at him, hopefully. "Am I yours?"

Apollo shook his head. "I'm sorry, but no. Good luck, kid." Apollo disappeared, leaving a few stray flames where he'd been sitting. Milo stood up, sullen, and put them out with some dirt. He then trudged, head down, towards the Big House. He sat on the porch swing and closed his eyes, tears rolled down his cheeks. His breathing eventually slowed.

I wiped the tear out of my eye and ran back to Artemis cabin, thinking about all I'd saw.


	7. Chapter 7

I had another dream that night. Milo was in a black cage, his arms chained in an X-shape. He looked up. His irises were red as blood, no trace of the lava orange in them.

"You can't keep me here forever. You'll have to let me go in the end." His English was so clear.

Another voice came from the darkness around him. "Oh, you'd be surprised what we can do." Milo looked at me, as though he were about to say something. His mouth moved, but no sound came out. I heard a woman scream, and then I woke up.

It was barely light out, and freezing. I could see snow falling outside the window. Apparently Dionysius had decided to let some in today. I covered up in blankets from two of the other bunks and sat on my bed, my teeth rattling. When the conch horn blew for the start of the day, I worked up the willpower to move and got dressed. I put on black jeans, black hiking boots, and a black hoodie over my shirt. I grabbed my jacket just in case as I walked out the door to breakfast.

Hestia's flames kept the pavilion warm, and some of the Apollo campers were trying to figure out why their bench was scorched. The entire Hestia cabin didn't seem to notice the cold, probably because they basically controlled fire, so they were walking furnaces. Nico was staring at one girl dreamily from the head table, and I could only assume it was Rowan. Milo was sitting at Hermes table, just looking at his bowl of oatmeal. He dropped the whole thing into the fire when he went up to give an offering.

Chiron watched him with a worried expression. In the few weeks he'd been here, no one had ever seen Milo sullen. The centaur stood in front of the head table.

"We'll have Capture-the-Flag tomorrow. The lead cabins will be Hermes and Hestia. Make your alliances, and have a good day!"

Everyone left the pavilion murmuring about what they would do. I saw Nico run after the Hestia cabin, likely to ally with them. I walked over to the Hermes head councilor, a tall 16 year old guy with elfish features named Mattias. He was talking to his cabin about their plan of attack (sneak attack, no doubt), when I grabbed his arm and spun him around.

"Has Milo been sleeping in your cabin?"

"Uh, no." He said. "Either that, or he's been coming in after we're asleep and leaving before we wake up every day."

"Thanks." I started walking away.

Mattias stopped me before I got too far though. "Listen, Nico's been an ace in the hole for whatever team he's been on for as long as I've been here. Would you ally with us, even things out a little?"

"Sure, why not." I shrugged. He nodded and went back to his battle-plan.

I didn't see Milo for most of the day, but Nico blabbered at me about his beloved Rowan and how she'd smiled at him when he offered to ally with them. I gave him the same amount of attention I would a vegetarian trying to convert me.

"You're not listening, are you?" He said after about twenty minutes.

"No, I am. I'm just not listening hard." I grinned at him. He shoved my shoulder, but laughed.

"Well, listen hard to this. The Hestia team has basically put out a death warrant for you in the game tomorrow, so watch out!" He made a scared face at me, and then caught sight of Rowan. I'm amazed he didn't shadow travel, he got there so fast. I sighed and shook my head at the love-dizzy devil boy. I turned to walk to the chariot track and practice a little, but almost ran right into Milo, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He looked worried.

"Thalia, I am afraid. I do not know the game Chiron was talking about. It has fighting, yes?"

"Yeah, two groups of people fight each other to take the other group's flag, and get it over the water to their side."

"I do not want to play it."

"Don't worry, you don't have to. Just sit near a tree and don't let people see you, and you won't have to fight anyone."  
"I do not want you to play either."

"Don't worry Milo." I smiled at him. "I'm good at fighting, and I'm just going to make sure the people on the other team don't get our flag, okay?"

He didn't look at all convinced. "People will be attacking you, and that dark boy, Nico. He said they want you to die!"

"No, Milo. It was a joke. He just meant a bunch of them are going to be trying to get me out of the game so their team has a better chance."

"I still don't like it."

"Then I'll tell you what. Stick to hiding, but keep an eye on me. If you see someone trying to attack me that I don't see, yell."

"Okay." He gave me a small smile. "I don't want you to be hurt Thalia. Try to be safe." He gave me a little hug. His body felt so warm, and he was only wearing a T-shirt, still. He let go, and walked off to do I don't know what. Little did I know that I would never look at Milo the same after the next day's game.


	8. Chapter 8

I was suited up and ready to go. The Caduceus of Hermes wafted in the breeze in the middle of the meadow the team had placed it in. Aegis was glinting in the sunlight, so was my armor and spear. All of the cabins siding with Hermes were raring to go. Apparently my presence was a big morale boost. Only Milo seemed sulky, doubtlessly because they'd made him wear armor and take a sword and shield. The sword was in its scabbard and the shield was slung across his back. He was leaning against his staff.

Mattias was running us through the plan again. "Group A, you'll go down the middle and distract them. Groups C and B will flank, and Thalia and I will go down the middle after group A. Defense, keep it tight around the flag, and guard the creek as well as you can. Milo," He looked at the unclaimed demigod still leaning against the nine-foot pole. "I want you to keep an eye out for anyone sneaking around, and tell someone immediately if you find any." Milo nodded half-heartedly. I knew he'd rather just keep an eye on me like I told him he could.

"I will keep watch." He said.

"Alright," Mattias stood and pulled out his own caduceus shaped mace. "Let's rock and roll."

Everyone took their positions, and Mattias and I stood parallel to each other a few yards from the creek. The conch horn blew to signal the start.

We waited as the other attack parties went through the trees towards Hestia territory. A few minutes passed, and the sounds of battle filled the forest. I looked at Mattias, he nodded.

Together we sprinted from our hiding places and jumped over the creak. When we hit the combat zone, I took the lead, everyone parting from Aegis. I noticed a bunch of skeletal warriors fighting Hermes team. _Nico_, I thought. _No wonder he's an ace in the hole._ People started attacking us from the back, and Mattias broke off to fight them. I kept charging forward, but landed on my ass when I hit a black rock the size of a cabin.

Nico strolled out from the back of said roadblock, his Stygian iron sword in hand. "I told you to watch out Thalia, and holding a shield in front of your eyes is a pretty poor example of that."

He slashed down at me, Aegis not bothering him at all. I rolled backwards into the battle between Hermes team and the zombie filled Hestia team. Nico ran forward, his blade ready, while I scrambled to my feet. I caught his sword on Aegis and lunged with my spear. He parried it and slashed again, almost goring my right wrist.

"Help Thalia!" someone behind me yelled. Two Hephaestus guys who had long spears and shields came to my side. Together we made a small phalanx and started pushing at Nico. His warriors came to his aid and attacked us from behind. I felt the sword rend through my armor and nearly get through to my shoulder. I spun around and used the blunt of the spear to send the skeleton's head flying. The Hephaestus campers went to work on the other skeletal warriors, leaving me to deal with Nico. I kept lunging at him, but he always parried and pushed me backwards. I thought my shin might fall off from frostbite as I stepped into the icy creek.

"You can't beat my army Thalia, just let me by and give me your flag." Nico stood at the shore as I backed deeper into the water, electrifying it enough that it would stun anyone who touched it. I heard the snapping of trees somewhere in the distance on my left. I felt a pit form in the bottom of my stomach as lightning shot down through my spear and towards Nico. He bounced it off with a discarded shield, and cold, smooth hands closed around my wrists. As the two Greek zombies restrained me, Nico sheathed his sword, and began testing the water, preparing to walk across. I struggled against them, but the undead soldiers kept a solid hold on me.

I heard splashing in the water around me and the groaning of trees in the forest. The hands on my wrists loosened, and then let go completely. My spear had fallen into the water, and I fumbled around for it. A bunch of Naiads erupted out of the water around me, and charged into Nico's warriors, ripping them to shreds. Dryads from the trees pushed the rest of his mini-army into the water to be obliterated by the Naiads. My Hermes teammates used the disruption to their advantage, and made for the Hestia flag. I spun around to try and figure out why the spirits had gone into a battle-frenzy. Nico hit me with the hilt of his sword, knocking me into the water face first. I gasped when my head broke the surface, and crawled onto shore. It felt like his hit had jarred my entire spine, and I couldn't walk. Nico walked out of the water and started slashing at me with his dulled blade. I rolled back and forth, but it was hard to avoid him.

Milo came out of nowhere, punching Nico in the side of the head and sending him flying at least 50 yards. He ran over to me and picked me up. Milo ran through the creek without as much as a sideways glance from the naiads, but we ALL had bigger problems now. A dragon, not Peleus, but a much larger one, busted through the trees of the forest. _Oh, great, the new monsters can break through the barrier_. It slashed downwards at us. I used what little strength I had to hang onto Milo when he pulled his staff out of nowhere and smacked away the claw. The dragon reared up and roared at us. Milo put me down and charged at it. It slashed with both of its front legs, one of which Milo managed to bat away again, but the second came down on him… hard.

His right arm was gushing blood, and the dragon wasn't done with him. It knocked him backwards, right next to me. I tried to use my powers to fight, but I was still too disoriented from Nico's blow. It opened its maw of a mouth and let a torrent of fire loose on us. Milo, somehow still functioning, wrapped his arms around me and used his fire-proof body to shield me. I felt his warm blood running over my clothes, but I didn't care about the gross factor at the time. My impromptu savior stood up and somersaulted towards the dragon, landing in the creek underneath it. I had a little more focus, and let a few lightning bolts rip its wings up. Milo jumped out of the creek behind the beast holding my spear. He looked up at the dragon, and hefted the spear at its head. It hit its mark, and _went clean through_ the monster's skull and into a tree in front of it. The giant lizard burst into a mountain of gilded dust that blew away on the wind.

"Woooo!" Shawn yelled as he came through the trees behind me, the Hermes flag in his hand. He ran towards the creek, stepping on and breaking my wrist along the way. I barely noticed the pain; I was so beat up already. Milo looked at him with more hatred than I'd seen on the face of Ares himself. He used his staff like a baseball bat and bashed Shawn's head, effectively clothes lining him so hard he dropped the flag and did an unintentional back flip onto his face.

Milo's arm was still bleeding a lot, and he looked pale. He collapsed into the water as Chiron and Argus ran into the forest. Argus scooped me up and started running back to the Big House. I saw a faint shape go by as Chiron passed us, Milo on his horse section's back. I fainted in Argus's arms.


	9. Chapter 9

I woke up in a Big House guest room. Percy and Annabeth stood over me. Annabeth fed me a little bit of ambrosia, and I took a sip of the glass of nectar next to me. It tasted like cold cherry pie with whipped cream.

"How did the dragon get in?" I croaked.

"Two… things, we don't know what they were, chased it through the barrier. It was old enough and big enough to break through." Percy leaned in and made me drink a little more nectar.

"What about Milo?" He'd lost a lot of blood, I was afraid it might've been too much.

He poked his head in the door. "What about me?" He seemed fine, maybe even better than he was before the game. He was wearing a leather bracer on his right arm though. He saw me looking at it. "I show you later." He said softly, his head down a little bit.

Annabeth and Percy asked me a bunch of questions, and some to Milo. Eventually, they both left the room to let me get some sleep, but Milo had other things in mind.

He sat in the chair next to my bed. He slowly untied the bracer and took it off. His entire right forearm was white scars, just like Luke had. "This what comes from fighting; lesson of pain." I stared at the scars, already they looked years old. Ambrosia and nectar made your worst wounds look like you've had them forever.

"The naiads and dryads, did they attack because of the dragon?"

"No… they attacked because I asked them to." Milo looked down ashamedly.

"How did you get them to do that?!"

"I can speak to most things. They always seem to know my speak, and do what I ask them."

"And you don't know why you can do that?" I sat up as I said this. He just shook his head. "What god can control spirits?"

"I do not know. Nico's god-parent can, but not life things."

"There must be some god or another. I mean, Pan could, way back when, but…" I realized what I had said. "Milo, do you remember anyone like Grover from your life?"

"No."

"Anyone who was kind of like him? A child of nature?"

"Yes, my parents love all thing living, this I know."

"Milo… I think I know who your father is." He looked up and at me intensely.

"Who?!"

"I think, based on everything I've seen you do, you might be the son of Pan." He seemed to radiate happiness for a few seconds.

"I will go tell Chiron what you think, but you sleep, be better." He ran out of the room, and like his words had put a spell on me, I fell asleep in seconds.


	10. Chapter 10

I woke up and flexed as much of my body as I could. After a few drinks of nectar, everything but my broken wrist felt almost normal, and I could tell it was almost mended too. Everyone else was on the porch. Percy, Annabeth, Dionysius, Chiron, Milo, Nico, Grover, and someone else.

"Rachel?" I squinted at her, the sun in my eyes.

"In the Oracle-possessed flesh." She said.

"Well, what are you doing here?" I asked.

"Sight-seeing, obviously. I'm here with a prophecy, what else?" she laughed.

"Did Milo tell everyone about my idea?" I sat on the porch swing. The nectar was wearing off.

Chiron, sitting in his wheelchair form, answered. "Yes, and it's the best lead we've gotten so far. It's possible that Pan made his way to the surface somewhere, not long before he died, in the form of a man. His hair was once golden, like Milo's, and the few wild places that are left were some of the only places he could really go. I believe that he met Milo's mother on one of his last excursions to the surface, and she went to Europe while pregnant. She may have died in childbirth, or something else happened, but in the end Milo ended up on the streets."

"That makes sense." I looked at Milo, who seemed at least a little bit happy with the knowledge, but not so much at the idea of two dead parents.

"I am now claimed?" Milo looked to Chiron.

"Yes, Milo, I believe you are." The centaur pulled himself out of the wheelchair and stood to his full height. "You are the last demigod son of the great god Pan."

Grover bowed to Milo, who just looked at him wide-eyed. "Why do you bend?"

"Pan is the Lord of the Wild and the Satyrs, you're kind of like our prince."

"Prince?"

"You are very important to my people, here, let me explain." Grover took Milo off the porch and started explaining the concept of being Pan's son.

Percy turned to Rachel. "So what's this prophecy?"

She pulled out a digital video camera. "Apparently I did this a few months ago. My roommate left the camera on by accident, and we just saw it yesterday."

The video showed Rachel asleep on her bed. She suddenly sat bolt upright and stood up. Green mist billowed out of her mouth.

_I am the spirit of Delphi, speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python. _

_Thalia, daughter of Zeus, second of Artemis, this prophecy is yours._

_Reseal the twin doors, never opened before._

_A Titan scorned, an Olympian born._

_Daughter of Zeus has much to gain._

_But one must suffer eternal pain._

The mist flowed back into Rachel. She laid back down and fell asleep again.

"So, you said you were the spirit of Delphi, and that's it?" Percy looked at her quizzically.

"What are you talking about?" I said. "I heard the whole prophecy… though that could be because it was about me."

"I heard it too." Rachel said.

"As did I." Chiron took the little camera and watched it again.

At last, he put it down. "It seems a quest is in order. I'll get everything in order. We'll announce it after the chariot race on Saturday, since it didn't give you a deadline." The centaur galloped into the distance.

I looked around for Milo and Grover. They were in the strawberry fields, and Milo was practically in love with a little plant Grover had summoned with his pipes. He was holding it and a little dirt clod in his cupped hands, breathing it in. It seemed to bloom and grow with each passing moment. A little strawberry popped out of it, and Milo looked like it was the first time he'd ever seen something be alive. He looked at me, grinning ear to ear, with a look of happiness that I couldn't help but smile back at. Grover spoke to him a little, and tried to pick up Milo's staff to hand it to him. He couldn't seem to get it off the ground though, and sat there straining like it weighed a thousand pounds. Milo scooped it up and spun it in his hand, looking at Grover and the staff perplexedly.

Rachel seemed to be staring at the staff, and she looked concerned, but then continued talking to Percy and Annabeth.

Nico sat next to me on the swing. "He certainly looks happy."

"That's what happens when you confront the son of the Wild God with new life, I guess." I shrugged at Nico. "Any progress with the lovely Miss Rowan?"

"Not really. She seems to think I'm a really nice guy, but she also said that whenever I'm around she feels cold. For a daughter of Hestia, that must be weird."

I patted him on the shoulder, wincing a little when I realized it was my broken wrist. "I'm sure it'll work out, and if not, leave a demon gerbil in her cabin."

He laughed so hard he fell off the swing, earning him stares from everyone and a bemused look from Dionysius.

"Well, despite how fun this has been, I'm gonna go and… do something else!" The god walked into the Big House, and I heard the fridge door open.

I looked at Milo again, and he looked right back at me. I swear, it was like his eyes glowed so bright I could see them from where I was sitting. A strange look, I now know it was one of realization, rolled across his face. His expression became blank, and he opened his mouth a little, as though he was about to say something. He looked away from me and back at Grover, a smile on his face again, to keep learning the lyrics of the Wild. He never really took to musical magic, and that look of realization was probably my first clue about what would come.


	11. Chapter 11

Artemis visited me a few days later, talking about the other Hunters and how they were doing, and describing some of their latest conquests.

"When do you think I'll be able to end this sabbatical and get back to the hunt?" I asked.

"Well, I would guess after you finish this quest, but, Thalia, I know what you've been thinking. I know that you aren't as passionate about the Hunters as you once were."

"That's ridiculous!" I felt my face turn red, in a cross of anger and guilt.

"Perhaps, but remember; you wouldn't have been the first to leave the hunt, and I will always hold you in high-esteem with future Hunters."

"You won't have to, because I'll be there to show them how awesome I am." I looked into her silver, child-like eyes. More age behind them than any granny I'd ever met.

She gave me a small smile. "Maybe I was wrong then. I'll be in touch, my dear lieutenant."

She disappeared in a flash of silver light and a gust of air. I stood up from the cabin bunk I'd been on and walked outside. A small figure at the edge of the forest caught my eye. I thought it must've been a baby satyr, and I started walking towards it. In my tiny critter obsession, I walked right into another girl just as fixated on something else. We both fell down in a mess of limbs and her long, wavy hair. After untangling ourselves, I took a look at my roadblock. As I said, she had long, dark hair, and intense red eyes. She seemed to radiate warmth. She also smelled like a bonfire with the best marshmallows in history.

"I'm _so_ sorry! I wasn't looking where I was going, I didn't mean to knock you down." She brushed some of the dirt off of my clothes as she said this.

"It's fine. I wasn't really paying attention either." I held out my hand to her. "I'm Thalia."

She went right past my hand and hugged me. "I'm Rowan!" She beamed at me. "I'm in Hestia cabin. You're a hunter, but Zeus's daughter, right?"

"Um, yeah, that's me." She had gotten a little too far into my personal bubble for someone I didn't know.

"Nico talks about you so much! I feel like I already know you. Between you and me, I think he might like you." She giggled a little.

"I wouldn't be too sure about that."

"You two should go to the dance together next week! I bet he'd say yes if you asked, and I know he doesn't have a date yet."

"I don't know if I'll be here next week. I have a lot on my plate."

"Oh, okay, that's cool. I wonder who Nico will end up going with then."

"Maybe you could go with him."

"Oh, um, I don't know if that's the best idea." I learned that when Rowan was feeling something negative she smelled like burning plastic.

"Well, why not? You could go as friends, couldn't you?"

"It's not that I wouldn't like to, but my cabin, well, my cabin's a bunch of elitist snobs. I was around the first year Hestia cabin was, so I'm used to camp, but we've been dominating most camp events for years now. They only date Aphrodite and Apollo kids."

"Wait, how does Hestia even have children? She's one of the maiden goddesses."

"Y'know how Athena kids are born from Athena's mind and their father's ingenuity? Well, the children of Hestia are born from the flames of passion between our mother and mortal men, and women for that matter. Anyone who Hestia sees as a close friend or a mortal she would love, she blesses with hope and love that she can't give. My mother was the daughter of Hestia's best friend for the past sixty years. I was the late blessing to the family."

"That's weird, but I won't judge. So, that's the only reason you won't go to the dance with Nico?"

"I guess so, and I don't think he'd be interested in going with me."

"Rowan, if you like Nico, then you should try to go to the dance with him, no matter what your siblings will think." She turned cherry (as in a flame, not the fruit) red.

"I never said that!"

"Mmm-hmm."

"I have to go. It was nice to meet you, Thalia." She hurried off, glancing back at me.

I looked to where I'd seen the small figure, but it was gone. _Damn! _I thought. Then I cracked up, remembering the "dam" incident. _We still try to honor you, Zoë Nightshade…_


	12. Chapter 12

The rest of the week came and went. I saw very little of Milo, since the council and the satyrs had more or less adopted him.

Rowan avoided me, and Nico was fused to her side, so he did too. I sat on the Artemis cabin front porch, playing with a Yo-Yo that someone in Hephaestus had made, and sipping a coke I bought off of the Hermes cabin.

For some reason, Athena cabin caught my eye. I thought of Annabeth, and Percy. I'd never gotten to visit their apartment, and I wondered if the invitation was still open.

After a little more deliberating, I decided to try and run to the city. I stood next to my pine tree, and scratched Peleus's massive head. He growled happily, wings flapping lightly and tail wagging. Once he was satisfied, I touched the bark I'd once been part of. I sat down and leaned against the trunk. Before long, I was in tears.

"What is wrong?" Milo knelt next to me. He seemed to have come out of nowhere.

"This tree… I used to be this tree…" I sobbed harder.

"I know. The part of you that still lives in it speaks to me sometimes. It misses you, but it is happy for you." He sat next to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

I leaned into him and kept crying. He cradled me and let me hold onto him.

"It is going to be okay, Thalia." I felt a surge of warmth flow through his body. It melted the snow around us and hid our little spot in a cloud of chilled steam. I held onto him as if it were the only thing worth doing. Milo just sat with me and kept hugging me. I realized just how good a being he was in that moment, and I knew how much everyone would need him by the end of all this.

"Milo, I just realized, I don't know your last name."

"Gena, I am Milo Gena."

"Milo Gena, will you come with me into the real world, and help me with my quest to 'reseal twin doors, never opened before'?"

He noticeably stiffened, as though he was afraid of the idea. "I… Yes, Thalia Grace. I will go with you, and help you in all ways I can, even by giving my own life."

"Thank you, Milo." I wiped the last few tears out of my eyes, and kissed him on the cheek. "You're a wonderful friend."

He smiled at me. We stood up and I said farewell to the symbol of my greatest hardship. Milo put his hand on the trunk, and I could tell he was talking to the spirit of nature within it. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, and the world seemed to bend with his breath. He opened them up and looked at me. I saw a blinding flash, and then everything went black.


	13. Chapter 13

I woke up with half of Apollo cabin standing over me, Chiron plodding worriedly around us, and Milo sitting cross-legged with my head in his lap.

"You are awake!" He smiled down at me.

"How'd I get to sleep?"

"You just collapsed. I do not know why."

Nico and Rowan broke through the Apollo circle. Rowan helped me sit up and started babbling at me, but I was more focused on Nico. He forced Milo to his feet and shoved him back down.

"What did you do you wild freak?!" Nico barked at Milo.

Milo stood back up and stared Nico down. "I did nothing." He reached around his back and spun a celestial bronze tube about two feet long to the front of his body. He opened it up, and pulled out his entire staff.

Nico stepped forward, so there was a grand total of three inches between them. Milo was actually a little taller than Nico, but I could've sworn they were the same height a few months ago.

Nico's eyes darkened even more, and Milo's eyes seemed to glow and flare. Chiron slammed his front hooves down next to them, and forced himself in-between them.

"There will be no fighting between you two." The centaur's voice was quiet and calm, which meant he was furious. Rowan grabbed my arm and squeezed it a little, I could tell she was scared.

"Who are you rooting for?" I whispered.

"Neither of them! I'm scared for Milo, though. I think Nico's too powerful for Milo to have much of a chance." She whimpered a little.

"I don't know, he beat Nico once…"

Chiron was still trying to part the two demigods. Small fissures were forming around Nico, and the feel of death permeated the air around us. Milo, however, was standing stone still, not at all intimidated by the son of Hades. His own aura of life and nature was making the grass behind him grow, and the dirt and rocks were rising and dissipating in little pillars.

"I do not want to fight you, Nico." Milo's normally calm voice had a dark undertone to it.

"I _really_ wanna fight you though." Nico gripped the handle of his sword, and got ready to unsheathe it. Milo held his staff like some kind of martial artist.

They stood there like that for a moment, Chiron standing between them with a hand on each of their chests. Faster than I think any of us could fathom it, Nico shadow traveled right behind Milo, who slammed the staff back and into his stomach, knocking him back, and giving Milo enough time to spin around and start wailing on him.

I focused hard, and used a powerful gust of wind to knock Nico back, away from Milo and into the side of Hera cabin, immobilizing him. Rowan, to my surprise, held up her hand with her first two fingers out and pointed straight. She lifted her hand into the air and swung it around for a moment. A huge whip made of fire leapt out of her fingertips and she swung it down on Milo. It coiled around his chest and arms, and she pulled him back.

Argus, who must have been somewhere, wrestled Nico down once I stopped the wind, and Shawn, much to him own delight, held Milo down. Chiron went to Nico, and they spoke for a few seconds. Thunder rumbled above, and then he came over to Milo, whom I was standing next to. Rowan had run over to Nico, along with his other friends.

"Milo Gena, I need your solemn oath that this will not happen again."

Milo looked at the centaur, and I could see he felt guilty about fighting Nico. "I swear on the River Styx I will fight with no one unless they are a threat to me or those close to me." There was a tremendous rumble of thunder, and lightning rained down, striking the roof of the camp's protective barrier.

Some of the other campers, who'd started to gather when they saw Nico and Milo glaring at each other, murmured to each other, and at least one little girl cried a little. Said little girl was right next to me.

She was maybe six years old, and looked like a daughter of Demeter. I knelt down and pulled her close to me.

"Hey," I whispered, much like I used to do with Annabeth "It's okay. My daddy makes the thunder and lightning, and he won't hurt us as long as I'm here. You don't have to be afraid, okay?" She nodded at me. "Okay." I said. I wiped her eyes with the cuff of my sleeve and tickled her until she laughed.

Argus led Nico to the pavilion and let go of his arm when they reached Chiron.

"Nico, for attacking Milo you'll help the cleaning Harpies in the kitchen for the next week. Milo, you acted in self-defense, but you're not exactly innocent here. The Council of Cloven Elders will administer your punishment." Chiron was still talking in his crisp and angered voice.

Milo and Nico were both escorted off to their cabins. I started to run after Milo, but Chiron caught me.

"We need to talk." He steered me towards the beach, and I walked warily, afraid of what might be said.

We stopped a few feet from the tide, Chiron looked out on the water.

"Thalia, you and Milo are becoming good friends, aren't you?"

"Yes, he's one of the closest friends I've ever had." I looked out to the water, the waves licking up onto the shore.

"You plan to choose him as one of your two quest companions, don't you?"

"I was hoping to bring Milo _and_ Nico, but yeah, he's going to come with me."

"I can't say I approve of that Thalia." Chiron had calmed down, but he was still a little curt.

"Why not?" I put my hands on my hips and looked at him.

"He's a very good fighter, obviously, despite his pacifist beliefs, so I'm not worried about him getting physically injured. My concern is that he seems to have only encountered more natural parts of the world, and his ideals of society aren't realistic. Milo needs to be introduced to the modern world gradually, and getting in a van to go to a big city airport isn't at all gradual." He gave me a knowing look.

"He must've been to an airport, how else would he have come from the Mediterranean to San Francisco?"

"I believe he may have come by sea, or maybe even have been brought by a spirit of nature, so that you all would find him."

"Well, I'm going to choose him to come with me anyway. He can manage an hour of New York City."

"I'm sorry Thalia, but I'm adding a stipulation to your quest. You may not choose Milo Gena as one of the people to accompany you. You can choose anybody else at camp, but you _will not_ be allowed to choose Milo Gena as a quest-mate." He did the centaur super-gallop down the shoreline, leaving me with his ultimatum hanging on the air.


	14. AN

**A/N: To everyone who has added us to your alert list, we the authors of The ****Trials of Thalia Grace and Milo Gena ****thank you! We also very much appreciate reviews though, and implore all readers to leave what's on your mind about the story in our handy-dandy review box!**

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	15. Chapter 14

I watched the chariot races without really seeing them that Saturday. Milo sat next to me, watching them with a horrified expression, especially after someone got hit with a discus thrown by Shawn. I hadn't had the heart to tell him he couldn't come with me, and I was hoping Chiron would tell him before I had to.

The race ended after Rowan's partner set the Ares chariot's wheels on fire, and they came screaming into first, flames coming from their chariot to boost their speed.

Everyone cheering or jeering, the mob of campers made their way to the pavilion, Milo and I among them.

Chiron stood at the head table, Mr. D snoring beside him in his throne. "Well, for the forty-second time in a row, Hestia cabin has won the races!" A cheer went up from their table. "However, that's not today's biggest event. A quest has been proposed and sanctioned for Thalia Grace of the Hunter of Artemis, the details are hers to disclose. Thalia," He gestured to me. "Please come to the front."

There was a mingled response from the crowd, some annoyed and some half-cheering.

"Thalia, you may choose two companions, as quest tradition dictates." Chiron put his hand on my back.

I scanned the assembled campers, stopping at Milo every time I saw him. "Nico di Angelo." Nico grinned and stood up. He did a mock bow to the crowd, who reacted just as mockingly.

I kept scanning the room. "Rowan, what's your last name?" I shouted. Everyone laughed.

"Gregson." She grinned at me.

"And Rowan Gregson." I gestured for her to come to the front. I took a quick look at Milo, who seemed barely fazed that I hadn't said his name.

Chiron nodded approvingly at me. "Then you shall leave this afternoon. I speak for myself," He looked at the snoring god. "And Mr. D when I say; good luck!" A cheer went up from the camp, and we were mobbed to our cabins.

Within the hour, we were in a van with Argus, headed for Central Park. Nico and I had worked out that his dad might know something about any monster-spewing door, and Rowan's hair would probably turn white if she shadow-traveled, so the Door of Orpheus it was.

Argus dropped us off at the edge of the park closest to the door, and we strolled through the evening air to the rock formation. I don't know why I didn't talk to Rowan and Nico, but it might've been because I didn't want to interrupt their conversation. Nico opened up the rocks into the Underworld, and we descended the stairs.

A few hours later, we all three flopped, half unconscious, at the edge of one of the Rivers, though I wasn't sure which one.

"Nico, can't your dad put us up for the night?" Rowan mumbled, her face in the black sand.

"Only if you want to spend the night in a doorless, windowless, airless cell."

"Is that a yes or a no?" I said sarcastically. "Rowan, make a fire for us, will ya?"

"But I'm tired!" She groaned back.

"Do you want to eat?"

"…Yes."

"Then make a fire I can cook on."

"Ugh, fine!" She spun her fingers over a spot next to her a few times, and a bonfire roared to life, wood and all.

"Was that so hard?"

"Shut up Thalia." She rolled over, and started snoring a little.

I looked at Nico. "I don't suppose she's been on many quests?"

"Not a one." He said, pulling a pot and some meat from his pack.

I watched our small chicken boil, and though of Milo. He was probably looking for me around camp, confused, or Chiron was just telling him that he couldn't go. I considered stirring up some of the water and sending an Iris Message, but then I realized that this was the River Lethe, so if the water touched us we'd forget who we were.

We ate quietly, afraid of alerting any Underworld beasts to our presence. We failed.


	16. Chapter 15

I woke up in a dark room with black walls, floor, and ceiling. Thankfully, it had a door, so I opened it and peeked outside. I was in the courtyard of Hades' palace. Nico was giving Persephone a hug, and she had a suitcase next to her. She gave him a motherly kiss and disappeared to bring springtime to the world above. Nico's father, the king of all things dark dank and underground himself, waved goodbye while standing next to his son. Rowan was coming out of another room, wiping the sleep out of her eyes and yawning.

"Hi, Uncle Hades!" I yelled.

A chill went over me as he heard this. He turned around and glared at me. "Hello Thalia."

Rowan looked around blearily. "Is it daytime yet?"

"Technically, it's about noon topside." Nico said.

"Can we go to your dad's palace now?" Rowan didn't catch on very quickly.

I walked over to her and hit her with a blast of wind to wake her up. "We're already here." I rolled my eyes at her.

"Oh." She perked up, and ran towards Hades. I'm still amazed she wasn't incinerated on the spot for hugging him, but I'm even more amazed that he actually hugged her back.

"Hello Rowan, how have you been?"

She started jabbering to the Lord of the Dead, and I just gawked.

"She came down here with me once before, and I think she slipped Dad something. He's been in a good mood around her ever since." Nico had sidled up next to me. "It might just be because she reminds him of my step-mom when she was younger."

"Think I'd survive if I hugged him?"

"You're lucky to be alive after calling him 'Uncle'." I'd thought as much.

"So, what are you all doing down here?" The god looked at the three of us in turn, grimacing at me.

"We're wondering if you know anything about ancient doors that are spitting out these weird monsters." Rowan said, still smiling at him. Only that girl could make the Underworld seem cheery.

"Not a thing." He said crisply.

"Have any leads for us?" I asked.

"Why would I tell you if I did? As a god, I shouldn't interfere with your quest."

"Aw, Dad, come on." Nico did the most teenage guy thing I'd ever seen him do and actually complained to his dad.

"If I've told you once, I've told you a thousand times, don't take a tone with me!" Hades actually seemed to be a ghostly monster dad when he pointed at Nico with his brows knitted.

"Pleeeeeeeaaase Hades?" Rowan gave him puppy dog eyes and pretended to grovel. This quest was getting weirder by the minute.

He sighed sharply. "Fine, I can tell you where someone who could help you is located."

"Where?" We all said at once.

He smiled coldly; this was the god I remembered. "The bowels of Tartarus." I felt myself pale. No mortal I knew of had ever escaped Tartarus.

I licked my dry lips. "And, uh, you can summon them out to talk to us, right?"

"Sorry, but no. You're only going to get an audience with her if you're willing to traverse the bowels of evil." His black eyes went right through me. He knew I'd do it.

I glared at him, my palms starting to feel clammy at the idea. "How are we supposed to get there, then?"

He grinned. "Like this!" Hades snapped his fingers, and Rowan and I fell into a fissure deeper than I would ever understand. I saw Nico jump in after us before it became too dark to see. I was happy in that moment that poor Milo hadn't come along after all.

I fell for what felt like hours, days, even years. I couldn't see Nico or Rowan, and the pressure on my body from the fall was too great for me to speak. I hit something, heard a sound like my back breaking, and passed out.


	17. Chapter 16

I dreamt of something new this time. It was a figure made entirely of shadow, and vaguely humanoid.

"I couldn't have done it without you." It said.

"Done what?"

"Everything." It gestured above us. The sky was so black it was barely visible, but it wasn't night. The sun was eclipsed by the moon, and the moon was very definitely broken into three pieces. It gestured to its right, and I saw what looked like a pile of rubble, but I recognized the rubble. Olympus had fallen, and the gods were in chains. They weren't bleeding Ichor though; they were bleeding red, mortal blood.

I looked back at the shadow figure, it had developed eyes, perfectly round, completely orange, glowing eyes. "Thank you Thalia, thank you for everything." The thing reached out to touch me.

I woke up screaming, tears rolling down my cheeks. Orange eyes were hovering above me, they were going to get, me, they were going to kill me. I kept screaming and struggling against two incredibly strong, but gentle hands.

"THALIA!" The eyes yelled. They were the only things I could see in the darkness; I couldn't even see my own nose. Someone shouted in an ancient language I couldn't understand, and a fire came to life next to me. I looked up at the eyes, which were now normal, save for the vibrant irises, and surrounded by the frightened face of Milo Gena. "Thalia, what is wrong?!" He yelled again.

I started sobbing harder and hugged him. He hugged me back tightly. "It almost got me!" I heard myself scream.

"It is okay." He said, soothingly. "Calm down." The tears stopped almost instantly, and I felt the fear leave my body.

I looked at Milo. "How did you do that?"

"What?"

"You made me stop crying just by telling me to."

"Pan was god of panic, I can... what is word… control it." That made sense.

I suddenly remembered falling into Tartarus and breaking my back. "How did you get here?"

"Easy." He pointed a few feet away from the fire, where a dragon the size of a small plane was resting. "Peleus bring me." Milo smiled.

"How the hell did you get Peleus to bring you to Tartarus?!?!"

"Hell?"

"It's a cuss word. Answer my question!"

"I ask him, he say yes. Very easy." Apparently stealing the guardian monster of the Golden Fleece was a normal activity in his life.

"He's supposed to be guarding the Fleece."

"Oh, yes, that is true." Milo looked at Peleus and said something in the language from before. It sounded older than Latin and Greek, but certainly wasn't the ancient rumbling from my dreams. The dragon leapt into the darkness, and I heard the flapping of his wings grow fainter.

"Where are Nico and Rowan, are they around here?"

Milo's look darkened. "I could not find them, and you were hurt. I could not leave you to look."

"Hurt? I thought I just imagined that crunching sound."

Milo's eyes were filled with concern. "Your back, it was… γκρεμίστηκε (shattered). I spent many hours and magic to fix it."

"How did you learn healing magic?"

"Grover teach me. I not use pipe thing though, I use this." Milo picked what looked like an Olympian electric guitar off the ground next to him. He became that much cooler when he started playing and green energy shot into me, making me feel like I'd just slept for a day. The tune was pretty awesome too.  
"You can do magic… with a Fender-Strat… That looks like it's made of marble, gold, and Aphrodite's hair?"

He smiled. "The council say it was Pan's pipe. It change to different things with passing time. Now, it is this."

"That's kind of epic."

"It's a poem?"

"Never mind."

Milo shrugged, retuned the guitar a little bit, and kept playing. It sounded like it was connected to an amp, but there wasn't even a jack for a cord on it, and the music was like I had always imagined a siren's song.

Milo stopped playing after a few minutes, ran his hand down the neck of the guitar, and it turned into a little golden pick. "Come." He said. "We look for them now." He crafted some torches out of petrified trees his music had summoned, and we walked into the abyss.

**A/N: Should the chapters be named? Review to reply.**


	18. Chapter 17

I'm serious when I say we walked for days without finding _anything_. I expected monsters, demons, exiles, by the one month mark I would've taken Kronos himself. I was certainly thankful that Milo could summon plants, but not so much at the idea of having to eat the things and drink the water that was inside a few certain types. Most of them were weird or petrified.

Milo and I talked a lot, obviously, and I eventually ended up telling him the stories from my days with Annabeth and Luke. He was always interested in whatever I had to say, and whenever we felt really tired, he would play his celestial guitar, which was like an instant nap.

Somehow, the torches never stopped burning, which might have been because they were made from dragon fire.

"Thalia, what is date?" He asked on our twenty-sixth day of trekking through nothingness.

"August something or other."

"No, I mean, what is date, like others say about?"

"Oh, umm…" I felt myself blush, and I hoped the torch light would hide that fact. "It's like when two people, usually a boy and a girl, spend time with each other, and they go out to eat, see a movie, just have fun."

"Is this date?"

"One of us would have had to ask the other to come."

"You ask me to come with you."

I turned even redder. "We'd have to be having fun."

"Oh." He looked down sadly. "I am not having a bad time; I did not know you were."

"Aw, Milo, I don't mean it like that. It's nice hanging out with you, but most dates don't include looking for out lost friends in the Underworld's restricted area."

"Maybe we go on real date when we get out." He said.

"Milo, no. I'm wouldn't do that, and I couldn't do that."

"Why not? You can't have fun with me?"  
"Milo, I'm a Hunter. We can't be involved in romance." "Romance?"

"I'll explain it to you another time."

"No, you just don't want to have fun with me in real world. You rather have fun with dark boy. I will find him for you!" He grimaced and walked faster, cussing in Greek, Latin, and Italian.

"Milo, wait, I didn't mean that!" But at the same time, I think I did.

"Hurry up!" He shouted, his voice dark and angry. He smashed his torch on the ground and stomped the flame, putting it out. His eyes made two orange beams that cut through the lack like spotlights.

He started jogging, and I knew I'd be running in a second. We sprinted through the abyss, Milo leading the way. He ran so fast that he made a wake of wind so strong I could see little traces of white pass through the air. He was tireless, and I had to use my wind power to keep up with him and keep breathing most of the time.

_I guess this is what happens when you offend the Wild, it… goes wild._ I thought after about a day of endless running. Milo finally stopped and played the guitar angrily. A little oasis –if that's what you could call white, leafless trees and water in the middle of an abyss- started crafting itself. He climbed the tallest of the trees and stayed there.

He didn't talk to me for a week, just ran for a day, made another haven for us to rest in, and kept running. Like I said, I'd have found Kronos if it meant I'd have someone to talk to during that. We must have left twenty of the little gardens scattered around the nothingness. Milo wasn't the only one growing plants down there though…


	19. Chapter 18

We ran on for a few more days, stopping more and more rarely. I coughed up blood when we did; my lungs just couldn't take it lying down.

One day, or night, I couldn't be sure down there, Milo's lights finally hit something. It was a pile of slime and ichor, half formed into some kind of hideous monster with a serpentine body and snakes for hair. Thankfully, it didn't yet have eyes.

"Sthenos." Milo murmured. "Eldest of the gorgon sisters."

"How do you know?"

"I just do!" He snapped.

"I thought Medusa was the only mortal one, why is Sthenos in Tartarus reforming?"  
"They fight each other." He took a sidelong glance at the mass, and kept running.

We ran into a lot more half-formed beasts, and I saw a familiar creature climbing skittering towards what must have been a wall or tower. The manticore didn't notice me, and eventually disappeared into the darkness.


	20. Chapter 19

It had been more than a month, and we still hadn't found Rowan or Nico. I finally got Milo to talk to me again, but he was never very interested in conversation.

"What if we can't find them?" I asked during one of our breaks.

"Then we keep looking."

"But, what if… something had happened to them?"

"We would know, trust me."

I sighed and hugged my knees. "At least your English is getting better."

He gave me a half-smile. "It is easy when talking so much. No distractions mean I have to focus on only a thing."

We actually slept for the first time in weeks instead of just absorbing magical rest. It was cold, very cold, but I fell fast asleep anyway.

I dreamt of something at least a little happy. Milo, though he looked younger, was dancing around a modest house; it had a lot of Greek architecture. A woman with soil brown hair, a green sundress, and deep green eyes was dancing with him. She was around forty, and had smiles lines just like Poseidon's. She looked a lot like Milo, and I could only assume it was his mother.

They were laughing and dancing wildly to music I couldn't hear. They looked so happy. It was hard to believe something could happen to break them apart.

I woke up a lot warmer than I'd fallen asleep. I was snuggled up against Milo, who had his arms wrapped around me. I could see the glow of his eyes even through the lids.

I was loathe to get out of his embrace, both because of the warmth and because… well, it feels good to be held like that. I stayed still for a few minutes, but eventually I got up the willpower to move. I bathed in the water Milo had summoned, and washed and dried my clothes. Milo woke up while I was pulling my boots back on.

He smacked his lips a few times, and looked at me tiredly. "Thalia, you never told me what romance is."

"Romance… romance is two people showing love for each other, sometimes enough that they'd be willing to spend their lives together."

"Why can't you have that?"

"I'm a Hunter of Artemis. She's a maiden goddess, and hates men. We lose our immortality and position in the Hunters if we fall in love."

'Oh…" Milo seemed deep in thought. "Maybe--" There was a vague sound nearby, like someone kicking something or stepping on something.

I pulled out Aegis and my spear, and Milo unsheathed his staff from the tube.

"Who's there?" I called into the darkness.

Someone stepped into the light of our meager campfire. She was wearing blue overalls, a green blouse, no shoes, and dark almost black hair with green highlights. Her eyes were so green they reminded me of chlorophyll diagrams from my fifth grade science class.

"Follow me." She said stoically.

I would've just as soon attacked her, but Milo held his staff like a walking stick and followed her without a second thought. I really didn't have a choice, so I went after them. We had just met the gardener of Tartarus.

We walked deep into the darkness, but after a few hours, it stopped being so dismally black. It all turned gray, and eventually we were walking on lush grass under a navy blue sky. I got a better look at the woman leading us. She was probably in her early twenties, and had black eyeliner ringing her insanely green eyes. Her skin was tan, and she had a strong body. Not Ares cabin beefy, but she looked like she exercised about as much as anyone at camp.

"We're here." She said, after cresting a high hill.

"Where's…" I stopped short. We were looking down at a garden with bright blue sky and clouds above it, despite the night feel of the rest of the grasslands. The plants were amazing, and a small house was nestled in the leaves. I looked at our guide, wondering if this was her garden, and I noticed what should have been her most distinguishing feature. She had shackles on her wrists and ankles. None of them had more than four chain links, and they weren't connected to anything, but it was still disconcerting.

She smiled, obviously relaxed, and ran down the hill towards the plants. Milo and I chased after her, but she was even faster than him. She got down to the edges of the garden and hugged a large, strange willow tree with white bark and pink blossoms.

I grabbed her shoulder. "Who are you?"

"You know who I am Thalia."

"No, I've never seen you before in my life, now tell us!"

She looked at me with a knowing expression. She sighed and smiled a smile that made me feel like everything in the world was okay. "Thalia," She said softly. "I am your family."

I "I don't have family in Tartarus, unless…" The realization hit me. "You—you're—but I thought…"

"You thought wrong, dear. I am the Titan Gaia, ever-present mother of the Earth, and your great grandmother."

I fainted.


	21. READ THIS

AHHHHHH! This is infuriating. I forgot an entire chapter, so everyone, please be kind enough to reread chapter ten, which takes place between Thalia in the Big House and visiting her own tree, and explains the prophecy.


	22. Apology Note

**Blech! We the writers have been having a time of it lately. There hasn't been a new post in quite a while, I know, and we apologize to any and all readers who feel we gave up and are into the story. Fear not, though, for we shall be resuming our writing within the month, and hope to have several new chapters.**


	23. Chapter 20

**Blech! We the writers have been having a time of it lately. There hasn't been a new post in quite a while, I know, and we apologize to any and all readers who feel we gave up and are into the story. Fear not, though, for we shall be resuming our writing within the month, and hope to have several new chapters.**


	24. Chapter 21

Gaia stopped and knelt by a small pond, with the bluest water I'd ever seen. She dipped her hand in, and the ripples that came from it reflected the sunlight in such a way that it looked like flames.

"These waters have always yielded what those who drink them are in greatest need of, though to survive a small sip is a feat more than godly." A cup appeared in her other hand, a gilded chalice with emeralds on the sides.

"Did you ever drink any?" Rowan stepped out from behind Nico and hugged his arm.

Gaia gazed deeply into the small waves. "Once." She whispered. "But that isn't important. I offer it to any of you who wish to try it. Heed my warning, though; you must know exactly what the greatest of your needs is, and it shall give accordingly. If you don't know, then it will answer your indecision by taking your soul, so you need never decide anything again."

Nobody responded, but she held the goblet out to us, her eyes grim.

I reached for it tentatively, but Milo's hand caught my wrist. "Thalia, all of our time in Tartarus says to me that you do not know what you want, or need. I will drink it."

Nico stepped forward. "So will I."

Gaia nodded solemnly. "So, who shall be first?"

Nico grabbed the cup from her and dipped it into the pool. He took a small sip, and I watched as he became stone still, and his eyes became blank.

Rowan grabbed him, and as she did he coughed the water up. He fell to his hands and knees and kept coughing. "What you need is to prove yourself, and the water has deigned that to do that you must use only what you are and what you have." Gaia told him as he calmed.

I hit Nico on the back hard and he stopped coughing. "Guess you don't get a wet present!" He laughed a little and rolled onto his back. I looked back, and saw Milo with some of the water cupped in his hands and his lips already touching it.

Like Nico, he became still, but his eyes weren't blank. He looked like someone had just stabbed him with a steaming poker and he wasn't fireproof.

I tried to get to him, but Gaia stopped me in my tracks. "He has to withstand it on his own."

Milo started convulsing, his eyes slammed shut and he fell onto his back.

"Milo!" I struggled against my grandmother's hand, which was about as sturdy as a brick wall. Rowan and, to my surprise, Nico ran past us and sat Milo up. He was still seizing and his entire body was ridiculously tense.

"Gaia, please!" I yelled while I tried to pass her.

Tears rolled down Milo's cheeks while he thrashed. He opened his mouth, and the sound that came forth made my legs give out. Gaia also fell, but right into the pond. A plank of rock shot out from the edge and caught her, but I took my chance and stumbled over to him.

I grabbed his shoulder and put my other hand on his chest, praying for him to be okay. He stopped flailing and lay still for a moment. He slowly opened his eyes and looked into mine. "Thalia…" He murmured. His eyes weren't orange anymore, nor luminescent. They seemed to be a warm shade of red, a little deeper than Rowan's. He smiled, closed his eyes, and went limp.

I felt myself sobbing. "Is he…" I couldn't bring myself to say it.

"No, just unconscious." Nico ran his hand along Milo's forehead, making his eyelids flutter a little bit.

I heard a gasp of air behind me. I spun around to see Gaia, drenched, obviously having fallen into the water anyway. She glared at me, but her gaze softened and she pulled herself onto the grass. She had a large piece of material clutched in her hands.

Nico and I knelt next to her while Rowan tried to wake Milo up. "I'm sorry, but I had to make sure he was okay." I looked down guiltily.

"It's fine, dear, just don't do anything like that again… or I will end you." We both laughed a little bit. "This," She held up the material, which was about seven square feet of something or other. "Is the hide of the Leviathan, which while never being mentioned in Greek mythology, is very real."

"What does it do?" Nico rubbed his hands along the hide.

"Ever hear of the Nemean Lion?" She asked, sitting up. Nico and I looked at each other. "Well, this is the water-proof version of its coat, and the fruits of Milo's seizure."

"Well, that's cool." Rowan said, still sitting by the still immobile Milo, but obviously no longer trying to rouse him.

"Well, since not everyone here got something out of this, I suppose I'll give you warm clothes, a quick route, and a few blessings." Gaia trudged over to Milo and sat down next to him. "You won't hear this, but I give you the blessing of the forest, to grow tall and strong for as long as you can." She looked at Rowan. "You're one of the most promising daughters of Hestia, so I'll give you the blessing of the Sun. Your fires, however hot, shall not harm anyone but those who mean you harm, and plants should be protected as well."

Rowan thought about her blessing, and Milo moved around a little bit. Gaia spun around to face Nico and I. "Nico, son of Hades, I bless you by the spirits of nature, so you can feel them as though they were mortal spirits, and therefore making you that much stronger, being able to draw upon their lost as well as the human dead."

She took a ponytail looped around her wrist that I hadn't noticed (giant shackles tend to hide bracelets) and put her hair in the high wild one I'd seen her wearing before. "And Thalia, my lovely Thalia, I give you the blessing of Nature's Bounty. Nevermore will you be cursed with an adolescent body, forever a child. You won't notice at first, but by the end of the year you'll look like a grown woman, and then you will again cease to age.

Milo mumbled in his sleep, and Gaia scoffed. She snapped her fingers and he was immediately awake. When he stood up, I could tell the blessing was working already. He was a few inches taller but his naturally lanky muscles had kept proportion with him.

Gaia laid back, put her hands on the ground next to her head, and sprung to her feet. "Follow me to the gate of Hyperion and some warm clothes!" She threw the hide to Milo and walked into her house.

She stood in front of a large archway and it suddenly filled with yellow light. "Any Titan can activate these things, and they can take you anywhere. So if you ever run into Titankind, ask if they have one, they probably do. You'll find clothes on the other side, and a doorway. Good luck!" I could have sworn she mumbled 'and may the Force be with you under he breath, because she barely didn't laugh. We all stepped through the arch, and into a frosty night.


	25. Chapter 22

The door opened across from a small building somewhere in the dark and cold. Nico stepped out and didn't even flinch at the temperature, Rowan was bundled up but melted the snow around her anyway, and Milo was bare-chested, but wearing the leather trench coat he'd made out of the Leviathan's hide (I can't lie, I might have recommended the design). I stepped outside and almost passed out from the sudden cold that hit my lungs. Milo raised an eyebrow at me. I swear, he was even _taller_, over six and a half feet. I don't understand how that was a "blessing", more like making him a big target.

"It's cold." My teeth were chattering.

"Cold?"

"Something you'll never feel. Nico, where are we?"

"Some kind of casino…" He shuddered, and I knew he was thinking about the Lotus.

"What's a casino?" Milo looked to us in turn.

"A big building where people pay to play games." Nico said without looking at him.

"That seems foolish."

"Ha, you have no idea." Rowan chirped through her layers.

"In, we go." I walked towards the main entrance, but was stopped by a guy who looked like he could be the Minotaur's equal in football.

"Sorry toots, but you can't go in without adult supervision. We can let you in to call a cab, but that's it."

"I'm nineteen!" Nico yelled from the back of our group.

"Yeah, I'll believe that when pigs fly."

I thought about the Clazmonian Sow, but then went back to figuring out how to get the guy to let us in. I was about to use the Mist to make him see four middle-aged people, but Milo saved me the trouble.

"I am an adult." He towered over the doorman, grinning like a moron.

"You're also half-naked in Alaska."

"But I am an adult, so I can go in." Milo tried to walk past him, but the bouncer's burly hand hit his stomach and stopped him.

"Not without my say so, stretch, and I say 'only if I ain't around to stop you'."

"That's acceptable." Milo hit the top of his head, and the guy crumpled like a ragdoll.

"Milo!" Rowan ran towards the body and put her finger on the ape's neck. "He's alive, but out cold."

"I guess we can go in, then." Nico stepped over the bouncer's arm and walked in. I pulled off his nametag, which said "Hello, My Name is TED" and a little symbol printed underneath it. The symbol had words around it, and when I squinted my eyes, and deciphered it through my dyslexia, they read "The Yx-Nay Casino/Café".

"Thalia, hurry up, I'm cold!" Rowan pulled on me. "What are you doing?"

"I just figured out who we're here to see."

The entire casino was poorly lit and filled with a haze of smoke. Someone on a stage was reciting poetry in front of about two hundred people, and a chorus of snaps when she finished each one. I heard the rapid shuffle of cards, but one set seemed extraordinarily sharp.

I looked towards a table in the absolute back corner of the place, which had only one patron. The dealer was an absolutely gorgeous woman with jet black hair, thick black eyeliner and eye shadow, black lipstick, skin paler than Nico's, a green, see-through visor, and gothic clothes. She had a cigarette hanging loosely from between her lips, and was firing out cards at a blackjack table like nobody's business. Yeah, Nyx, the Titan queen of the night, and apparently the night life, was dealing cards in a casino named after her.

We made our way over, and I heard her voice. She had a British accent and a wily way about her. "Stick or hit, stick or hit, pick one now or leave the Nyx." A chubby man with blotchy skin, slicked back dark hair, and a purple suit slapped his hand down on the cards.

"I'll stand."

"Very good, Mr. D, but I'm afraid you have only 18." She flipped the cards, and as if it were magic, Dionysius had a 7 and an Ace.

"What does the dealer have, then?" He waved his hands over the cards in front of her. Her eyes opened wider, and she gave him a sly look. Her irises were white with vague, dark outlines.

"Are you trying to cheat me Mr. D?"

"Are we not both full of tricks, Lady Nyx?"

"Indeed." She flipped her face-down card, giving her a perfect 21 with an Ace and a Queen. The queen looked like her, but with black robes and a blade. The suit was a little black circle that had a pentagon outline inside.

"Blackjack." She smiled at the god, and put her cigarette out on the table next to her. "I suppose you need to go now, no interfering with quests Nisey." Mr. D disappeared and she looked at us.

"What brings you midgets to Alaska?" She stood up, and made me feel even more like a dwarf in the room. She was taller than Milo.

"Gaia sent us." I said, trying to act like she wasn't frightening.

She rolled her eyes. "Bollocks! Not once have I had a month off where there's been no bother from Gods or Titans." She breathed out sharply, put her hands on her hips, and looked at us with an exasperated expression. "I suppose you'll want me to drive you to my flat."

"Uh, well, not exactly…" Rowan started to babble, but Nyx reached out and pinched her lips shut.

"Shut it an' follow me." She sashayed out of the building, her visor left on the table. Her clothes changed as she walked through the entrance, stepping on Ted and making him groan. She was now wearing a brown leather jacket covered in buckles and chains, knee high boots, also covered in buckles, and blue jeans with a low hung belt. Her shirt was just black, nothing special about it. My kind of Titan, to be honest.

She walked to a parking lot I hadn't noticed before and pulled out car keys. When she walked to the navy blue Mustang I actually considered giving up the Hunters to be her adopted kid.

Nyx opened the door and pulled the driver's seat forward. She pulled another hand-rolled cigarette from behind her ear and lit it with a Zippo that had her casino's crest on it. "Are you lot coming?" The Titan yelled.

We all scrambled into the car, still freezing, and buckled up. Milo sat in front with her.

"I'd pull my seat forward, but I like being able to drive." She turned towards Rowan, who was sitting behind her, and grinned. She started racing down the snowy road. "So, Gaia sent you, eh?"

"Yeah, straight from the pit." I was FREEZING.

"I should kick her leafy arse for screwing with my holiday."

"I don't think the gods would appreciate that, especially Zeus." Milo yelled, completely unaffected by the wind.

"Kick his arse too. Gods aren't really a problem for me, half of 'em are my brats, after all."

"That's right, I remember Persephone telling me that most of the dark minor gods are your children." Nico sounded faint, even though we were right next to each other.

"Aye. Thanatos, Nemesis, Hypnos, Morpheus, Moros, and the titan of the day, Hemera. All mine, all kickin' hard, and none of them really ever visit! I have other children, but those are the only ones I care to name…" Her voice pierced the wind in that last line, and though she whispered it, I could hear it perfectly.

Nyx looked through her rearview and straight at me, I saw her eyes focus hard on something about me. I unthinkingly moved towards Nico, and therefore behind Milo.

"Lady Nyx, Great Mother Gaia gave me a message for you." Milo's voice seemed to pierce the air as well as Nyx's had.

She looked at him. "Speak it in a tongue they won't understand. I don't want to frighten your friends; at least one of them can hear us." What did she mean by that?

Milo said something that sounded like a lot of A's and E's jumbled together. "Lady, what does it mean?" He said, after.

"Bad things, love; monumentally bad things." The Titan's eyes were glued to the road, and she accelerated. The speedometer licked 150, and I was afraid for the car's paint-job.

Sirens blared behind us. "Bollocks." Nyx muttered. Again I could hear it perfectly. She pulled over to the side of the road and the cop stopped behind us. The woman with the badge, who I now know was officer Elaine Dent, sidled up to the driver side door, where Nyx, her seat still so low and far back I'm amazed Rowan's legs weren't in her face, was white-knuckling the steering wheel.

"License and registration, ma'am."

"Don't suppose you'd take an English license from the '30s?"

"I don't like jokes in a serious situation Ma'am."

"Wasn't a joke. Anyway, if you want my driving license and proof of ownership then you're going to get back in your squad car disappointed."

"Are you telling me that not only are you not licensed, but you also don't own this car? Who DOES own this car?"

"Hell if I know."

"Yeah, now you'll tell me you don't have a passport, you've never met these kids before tonight, and _he's_ not gonna die of frostbite."

Nyx looked at her and started laughing so hard she wheezed and put her head on the door, her cigarette falling out and right onto the policewoman's left shoe.

"That's it, I'm arresting you," She gestured to Milo. "And your boyfriend there for Grand Theft Auto and Endangerment of Minors! Step out of the vehicle."

"Listen here, you self-important Bobby; you can't make me do a damn thing!"

The cop put her hand on her hip holster. "I said _step out of the vehicle_." I noticed Milo was rocking back and forth on his feet next to the passenger door already.

Nyx practically kicked open the door, hitting the cop in the legs and buffeting her back a little. She got out and stood over the woman, reality itself darkening around her.

Officer Dent pulled out a pair of cuffs, and tried to push Nyx, almost knocking herself down in the process. "Turn around, spread your legs, and put your hands on the vehicle." Milo leaned on the car calmly, probably having no idea what was going on.

Nyx slapped her hands on the hood. I couldn't see her face, but I knew she was seething. The cop moved in to pat her down.

"Do you really have to do that?" Nyx sounded a little nervous, which made me _very_ nervous.

"Please be quiet, ma'am." Elaine patted her hands down Nyx's side, but when she got to the duster's left pocket, she stopped. "What have we here?"

I heard Nyx's head thud on the roof. The officer pulled out a silver magnum revolver with a pearly white grip.

"I see you didn't just use your tall friend over there to steal this car." She gestured with the gun. It didn't flicker, it didn't change. As far as I could tell, it really was a gun.

Nyx huffed and turned around to face the little woman. "Give that back to me, or I'll have to take it from you."

The cop pulled her own handgun and pointed it at the Titan. "Step back, ma'am!" Nyx just kept stalking toward her. She fired off what must have been every round in her gun, each of which going straight through her target and thudding against the car.

Nyx's eyes widened. "_You… shot… my… car!_"

Milo pulled a bullet off the impenetrable Leviathan-hide coat. "And me." He said calmly.

Nyx spun around, probably thinking Milo had actually been shot, which is when Elaine realized she was holding another gun. She shot at Nyx with the silver revolver, the bullet hit. Officer Elaine Dent had just shot the Titan of the Night, easily one of the most powerful beings in the universe, square in the top-back of her right thigh with a celestial bronze bullet. Basically, a cop from Alaska just shot a woman who could kick the hell out of gods in the ass with her own gun. If anyone could make anyone angrier, I would pay every drachma ever made for it to _not_ happen.

Before anyone could react, Elaine was surrounded by absolute shadow, an empty space on the face of the world. There was a scream, a fountain of blood from the top of the emptiness, and all that was left was red snow, ruined clothes, and Nyx's magnum. A small stream of ichor was snaking down her pant leg.

Nyx picked up and pocketed her gun, got back in the car, and closed her eyes. She sat there, twitching at the pain, and fuming. Finally, she opened her eyes, started the car, and drove as fast as before.

"Bitch shot me in the arse." She didn't seem to believe herself.

Nyx put the pedal to the metal and kept driving, the police cruiser erupting in flames behind us.

"Are you, um, are you okay?" Rowan murmured.

Nyx turned around and smiled warmly at her. "I'm fine darling, it's already healed. I'm also sorry that you all had to see that, but I'm what most would call… uninhibited in my aggression."

I made a mental note to only let Percy ever piss off Nyx. There was a pair of golden dice dangling from her rearview mirror, and they looked _solid_ gold.

"What's with the dice?" I asked.

"Well, me and Nisey invented the first game where one would gamble with valuables. We'd only ever played each other, so we wanted to know how others would fair. Well, shortly after the first drachmas were minted by Hephaestus, and given to your da' for inspection, I convinced him to play a game…" Oh gods. "Suffice it to say, he lost every single one, and just for fun, I had Heffer melt 'em down into these." She fondled the dice.

Nico looked perplexed. "How did you know about dice being so common now?"

Nyx looked like it should've been common knowledge. "I'm an all powerful being born from Chaos itself who can see anything to do with my realm throughout time. It was about as easy as reading a Television guide."

No one said much after that, though Nyx did start blasting a lot of funky music, and she had everything from Lyre music, to pan flutes, to death metal. She also had a futuristic sound that she called "Shredder" music, but I didn't really want to know.

The Titan finally stopped speeding when we had truly reached the middle of nowhere. The sun was just peeking over the horizon. Nyx got out and walked towards a small snowdrift. I thought there wasn't anything there, but when she waved her hand, the Mist parted and standing there as plain as day (or night, in this case) was a door. It didn't noticeably lead to anything, nor was I sure how it was standing up.

We all followed the fast-striding Titan, Rowan and I eager to get out of the cold, Nico curious and wary of our host, and Milo still looking appalled by the policewoman's murder.

Nyx put a key in the door and turned it. It swung inward to a dim, gray, but not really dark room with a coat rack. She walked in with a sigh of relief, hung up her jacket, and went through another door. We all followed, but Milo was the only one to hang up his Levia-leather coat.

Nyx's home, or her vacation home, or winter home, or whatever, was a modern looking apartment with one wall made entirely of indestructible glass. It looked out onto the gloomy streets of London, the sun disappearing on the horizon, and I could see Big Ben in the distance.

"So, you follow Apollo around the world?" Rowan asked, playing with a deck of cards on Nyx's coffee table.

"Hardly. The big ball of hot air is running from me. He's just like Helios; too frightened to come anywhere near the lady who covers half of his job area. It's a bit insulting really, your coworkers not wanting anything to do with you." The Titan was rolling another cigarette with what looked like papyrus. She shook the tobacco hard until a little cupful of black goop had come off of it. She noticed I was watching.

"Nicotine. I like keeping my teeth white without magic." Her smile really was blinding, too. "Want a fag?"

I remembered hearing that was a British way of saying cigarette. "I don't smoke."

"How about you lot?"

Nico shook his head, Rowan looked repulsed. Milo, however, nodded slightly.

"I smoke." He said.

"Good, now I like you more." She handed him the one in her hand, and lit it for him. He breathed in, but immediately turned green and coughed so hard his lungs should've fallen out.

"What is this awful thing?"

"You said you smoked!" Nyx seemed offended.

"Yes, see." Milo picked up her lighter and set his arm on fire, which promptly began to smoke.

Nyx took a drag off of the cigarette she'd given Milo and stretched out on her red leather couch. "Set anything on fire and I'll throw you out the window." She said nonchalantly.

Milo put his arm out. Rowan and Nico were passed out, leaning against each other. I saw a room behind the couch Nyx was sprawled out on and could barely see a freaky looking four-poster bed.

"Fell free, love." She gestured to me.

I walked towards the room, but stopped next to Milo. "Milo, you should really get some sleep too."

Nyx replied for him. "Sorry, but me and your mate are gonna have us a little talk before he goes nighty-night."

I figured I had no chance of arguing with Nyx, so I just went to her bedroom and fell asleep.


	26. Yet Another AN

Just to clarify with everyone reading (and I love you all for reading it, whether you like the story or not) there will only be eleven more chapters! However, this is only the first story of a series, and there is plenty more to come! As a warning though, the sequels, while maintaining the same storyline, may have different content. There will be far more action and violence as the tale progresses, most of it graphic. This may lead to an increase in the rating to M, BUT AT NO TIME WILL THERE BE EXPLICIT ADULT THEMES! The romantic themes will never progress past T. The language may become more coarse with some characters, but if that offends you then that's your thing.


	27. Chapter 23

My dreams were back to roiling shadow and freakiness, but at least I was used to it. The shadow being from my Tartarus dream was roaming around, its eyes even more piercing, but now a noticeably different shade than Milo's. Speaking of Milo, he was kneeling at the foot of a throne, considerably far away from shadow-thing, his staff in his hand, his hair once again long, and wearing his original outfit of a Greek man-skirt and leather sandals. I vaguely recognized the throne, and definitely recognized the man sitting in it. It was Poseidon, but he wore a golden crown with little lightning bolts etched into it.

I finally recognized the throne, it was my father's. Why was Poseidon in it?

"Do you pledge yourself to the gods, and whosoever wears this crown?" Poseidon spoke in Ancient Greek, and Milo did as well.

"I swear in the name of Gaia." Reality itself seemed to shimmer as he spoke the oath.

"Then rise, and fight on our behalf."

Milo stood up, easily as tall as any of the Gods. He slammed his staff into the ground, and a wall of blue flame rippled along the floor of Olympus and towards what must have been a brand new building. I was suddenly inside. My father lay on a spectacular bed, barely breathing, and horribly beaten; red, mortal blood everywhere. A golden EKG he was hooked up to suddenly flat-lined. I started crying and knelt at his bedside. I could hear mournful trumpets outside as Apollo removed the EKG and covered Zeus's face with a blanket.

I heard a somber chorus. "Hail Poseidon, new king of the gods." I looked out, and saw the new king hugging his other brother, both were crying.

My eyes snapped open, and I leapt up, hunting knives in hand. One of which was at Nico's throat.

"Is this really necessary?" He said quietly, a trickle of blood forming at the blade point.

"Oh Gods! I'm sorry. I had a weird nightmare."

"Oh, that totally makes sense. I conjure armies when I have nightmares."

"Really?"

"No! Are you crazy? If I did that every spirit in the Underworld would be next to me right now! Oh, and could you maybe stop stabbing me now?"

I sheathed my knives and sat down. "How long did I sleep?"

"Three hours or so, same as me. Nyx left out some weird food for us, but I don't know where she is."

"Doing her night Titan thing, most likely."

"It seems like she does that just being wherever she is, but I guess that's a side-effect of how much oomph she's got going."

"What do you mean?"

Nico sat down next to me. "How much do you know about Nyx?"

"Before I met her; Titaness of the night, very powerful, doesn't care much about the immortal conflicts."

He laughed a little. "Very powerful is a very large understatement. Nyx is the oldest and by far the most powerful being on Earth."

"What about Gaia and Ouranous?"

"They represent the Earth and the sky, so they both have a lot of strength, but Nyx is darkness and night. Nothing but raw power. I mean, think about it. The ground and the air take up this planet, right?"

"Duh."

"And all the gods represent parts of the world they make up, right?"

"Yes, does this have a point?" Nico talking down to me was annoying.

"Well, what else is there besides Earth?"

"Space. I don't see where-" I finally caught on. "That's all Nyx, isn't it?"

"Every shadow, every little bit of black between the stars both fuels her power and is a symbol of it. If she didn't have that kind of power, then we wouldn't see them. When Hemera is on one part of the planet, and Apollo and the Sun chariot are flying by her, making the day, we just see blue sky or clouds, so we see Hemera and Ouranous. When you look up at night, you see the moon –Artemis- and you see stars, space, and darkness. So basically, there are a bunch of pinpricks in Nyx's power that make up other immortals."

"What about Chaos?"

"Chaos is everything, so I don't think it really counts."

Despite looking at Nico, I knew Nyx was standing the doorway. The whole room got darker.

"He's right." She was standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame with her arms crossed. She was wearing what looked like a black, sleeveless, form-fitted jumpsuit with a luminescent white pattern on it, and some fingerless gloves that went up to her elbows. Her hair was shorter, and styled all spiky. She looked kind of like the goddess of punk-rock.

She was also wearing different makeup. Her skin was still pale, but more 'I don't live in California' than albino. She had on silvery lipstick, and her eyeliner wasn't nearly as heavy. She still looked pretty gorgeous, and that's coming from a straight girl.

"Once, all of the Titans bowed to me as the Empress of the Immortals, and then the Gods as the Black Queen of the Titans. I participated in the Titanomachy, to a point, but after spending time with the Gods I captured, and hearing of what they would do for mankind, I couldn't keep doing it. I was disowned by many of the Titans, and my titles were stricken from history, but I'm okay with that." She strolled around the room and stopped at a display case with steely black armor in it. It wasn't Greek-style armor, either. It looked like ass-kicking medieval armor that you would imagine a king (or in this case, a queen) to wear.

She ran her fingers along the glass, and stopped when they were lined up with a really long-bladed sword made with vaguely blue metal, and had ancient runes engraved in it. She looked away from it and the case disappeared in a gentle breeze of black mist.

"My past, however, is completely irrelevant, because I'm taking you two to a concert." She put her hands on her hips and grinned at us.

"A concert?" Nico raised an eyebrow at her.

"Yes, a concert, know what it is? There's people, music, a mosh pit, a band whose name is, strangely enough usually mentioned when describing the concert!" She made a face that pretty much said that mocking us was really fun for her.

"What about Rowan and Milo?" I was more worried about 'Why would she take us to a concert?'

"What about them? She's a regular preppy and he would have no idea how to handle himself around that many normal humans."

"Listen, as much as that sounds fun, we have a quest to do, and-" She cut me off.

"I am more than aware of why you came to see me, and I'll answer your questions in good time, but only if you both come with me to this lovely event."

I thought about it for a minute, and my need for chill time and good music won out. "Alright, but what are _we_ gonna wear?"

She gave me a wide smile, pretty much blinding me with her star-white teeth. "Leave that to me, love, leave it all to me."


	28. Don't Y'all Love My ANs?

Just to clarify with everyone reading (and I love you all for reading it, whether you like the story or not) there will only be eleven more chapters! However, this is only the first story of a series, and there is plenty more to come! As a warning though, the sequels, while maintaining the same storyline, may have different content. There will be far more action and violence as the tale progresses, most of it graphic. This may lead to an increase in the rating to M, BUT AT NO TIME WILL THERE BE EXPLICIT ADULT THEMES! The romantic themes will never progress past T. The language may become more coarse with some characters, but if that offends you then that's your thing.


	29. Chapter 24

"Have a good time in there; I'll be out here if you need some company, baby." The creepy bastard checking tickets winked at me as I passed him. I fought an urge to kill him on the spot, but Nyx swung her arm around my shoulders (which, considering she was about a foot and a half taller than me, involved her being half-bent over) and led me inside, Nico fighting through the crowd behind us.

"Don't you just love this energy?" She said through a huge smile. Her voice easily pierced the roar of people; I had to yell my head off though.

"Who's playing?" I yelled while looking back for Nico, who was being mauled by Goth and emo girls. Nyx had dressed him in black combat boots, black skinny jeans, and a black V-neck with the sleeves torn off and the whole thing torn down the middle, so it looked like he was wearing a Y-Incision vest more than a shirt. She'd also put a little bit of eyeliner on him and styled his hair.

"One of my favorite bands! They're the ones who'll invent Shredder!" Oh, great.

"What are they called?"

"Sunz of the Wyld!"

"How good are they?" My throat already hurt.

"Let's just say that the lead singer has an unbeatable death roar." I'd gone seven years without rock music, I was just ecstatic about getting my eardrums blown out. She turned around and gestured at Nico. "Hurry up!"

"I'm trying! He wrestled his way out of the mob and caught up to us. I heard a few disappointed calls while he dusted himself off. "So, when's the music gonna start?"

"Any minute now!" Nyx was genuinely excited, and let me tell you, it is really weird to see someone that timeless be giddy about some band I'd never heard of.

The roar of fans got louder and I turned to face the stage. The band was finally coming out, and I got my first look at Rueben Dwayne Talley.

He looked about twenty-six and was obviously of African descent. He had a look of frightening mischief on his smooth and careless face, but his eyes freaked me the hell out. They were a bright luminescent orange, and, looking around at the other band members, they all had orange eyes too.

The bass guitarist had snake bites and platinum blonde hair that was in knots all over her head, the drummer was a bald white guy with a red goatee, and the rhythm guitarist, doubtlessly my favorite member aesthetically, had bright blue hair in a shaggy mess on her head, and rings that looked like she could kill people with them. Rueben (Ridley, as I later learned he was called) stepped up to the microphone, his guitar slung loosely from his shoulder, and his head nodding in rhythm with the crowd's chanting.

"My dear fans, and all those who have come here to get a taste of the future of rock; we are the Sunz of the Wyld!" The whole place went mad as the rest of the group started the first song.

I have to say they kicked some serious ass. I was enamored by the fourth song and found myself swaying and head-banging in unison with everyone else. Nico was stiff, but I could tell he liked it too, and Nyx was just going wild in the midst of all the mortals. Then, of course, something weird _had_ to happen.

It was sometime during the fourth or fifth hour of straight music, just after one of the half-hour bands left the stage. Ridley and the rest of the crew stepped out and started playing, but faster than before, harder, louder, everything more. He was singing furiously, and the entire group seemed to be getting more intense with each note. Finally as they reached the crescendo of one of the choruses, he stopped singing, looked out, and screamed like a banshee into the microphone.

Actually doing it into the microphone was unnecessary, because the Call of the Wild is so loud that car alarms for a mile radius started going off, and everyone seemed to go mad in a heartbeat. I barely managed to stand my ground against the sudden fervor, but I saw Nyx standing stone-still and looking straight at me, a somewhat scary smile on her face.

She was a good fifty feet away from me, but when her lips moved I could hear her words clear as day. "Get Nico, we're going backstage."

I grabbed the dumb-founded son of Hades' arm and dragged him to where the Titaness of the Night was walking, and into a new chapter of weirdness with the Sunz of the Wyld.


	30. Chapter Fix

Okay, I just noticed the big gaping hole in the story while they're with Gaia in Tartarus. Please take the time to read the chapter that should be between Thalia passing out and Milo getting the Leviathan hide.

I must have hit my head on one of the decorative stones, because it hurt a lot. Gaia, my twenty-something grandma, was kneeling beside me, her hair in a high, loose, and wild ponytail. She was using wet fabric to clean my forehead off.

"You took quite a stumble, honey." Her voice was smooth and soft.

"Well, a woman who looks like she should be in college just told me she's not only a Titan, but my great grandma."

She smiled at me. "I didn't think it would be that much of a shock to you, but then I remember that you haven't been watching me like I've been watching you your whole life."

"Stalker much?" I laughed, but it made my head hurt more.

"At least this gives me a chance to give you a makeover." She smiled again and kept rinsing my head, the cloth less red with every pass she made.

"Oh great, an ancient makeover."

"Don't worry, I'll keep your style, but I'll also see if I can't just upgrade it a little bit."

"Umm… Gran?"

"Yes?"

"Can I ask you a question?"

"You just did."

"Okay, another one?"

"That was your second."

"Can I ask you yet another question after you answer this one?" I was agitated, she was trying not to laugh.

"Shoot, sweetie."

"What's with the shackles?"

Her expression darkened significantly. "I'm the eldest Titan, and more powerful than your father and uncles put together. About a thousand years ago, the gods came to me. They told me I would either have to swear myself to the Olympians, which I wouldn't, or be exiled. I requested my own patch of Tartarus that I could completely manipulate, and in return I wouldn't leave. The shackles symbolize the deal. They break, I leave, but I also basically declare war on my grandchildren."

"Gods, it's so hard to believe someone who looks as young as you is the oldest thing in existence!"

"Yes, you would know me as the oldest, wouldn't you? Well, as to my appearance, I reflect the world around me. At my best, I'm a child, and my power becomes limitless. It's funny, the more powerful I am, the better I can make my surroundings. Down here, I can never reach full strength, so this is me at my best."

"Have you ever considered renegotiating your deal?"

"Once or twice, but it really isn't worth it."

"Your freedom isn't worth it?"

She sighed and smiled at me. "You have a lot to learn, my dear. Sometimes, freedom isn't simply the right to do what you want, but more the knowledge that you are not oppressed. I choose to stay down here, because I am not imprisoned."

I grabbed her wrist to emphasize the chain. "Then why do you have these?"

Gaia jerked her hand away and glared at me, which is kind of like staring down a tidal wave during an earthquake while flying inside of a twister over an erupting volcano and expecting them to stop. "It also isn't the time for me to leave." She turned away, and I caught a glimpse of her back in the wide neck of her shirt. She had a small but wicked scar on her top left shoulder.

"What's the scar back there?"

It was a few moments before she replied, and her voice was quiet. "A bad memory." She touched the cleave gently, and pulled her blouse back over it. She glanced back at me. "Go back to sleep."

"But I-" She tapped my forehead and I was out like a light.

When I woke up, I was in a fluffy bed in a sunny room. I forced myself up and looked around. Milo was passed out on the floor, which was just dirt. I just about screamed with joy when I saw the two people sleeping in the other jumbo-sized bed.

Rowan was snoring loudly, little puffs of smoke coming out of her mouth with each breath, and Nico was stone still with his eyes closed.

I don't know if it was the wind or my eagerness that made me move so fast, but I was basically jumping on top of Rowan and Nico like a little kid on Christmas day (a day I'd never really gotten much out of).

"YOU'RE ALIVE!" I screamed while I mauled my friends.

Nico's eyes snapped wide open, and Rowan was up and jumping with me before anything else could happen.

"You are too!" Rowan squealed. She hugged me, which, after about a month of running in the dark with Milo, was more than welcome.

I hugged Nico without thinking about it, and he smiled while he hugged me back. Rowan stood on Milo's chest and he woke up, they also hugged. Do you know what happens when two people with abnormally high body temperatures hug, especially if one isn't wearing a shirt? It felt like it was at least 40 degrees hotter and humid now.

After Rowan let go, Milo gave Nico a semi-respectful nod, which wasn't returned.

We all sat down on the larger bed and discussed our respective journeys. It seemed that Nico shadow-traveled towards Rowan after Hades dropped us, and came after me but I wasn't there. I explained that Milo had somehow followed us on Peleus, and how we didn't really find any monster of interest while in Tartarus.

Nico then explained how he and Rowan (who DID in fact have a streak of white in her hair from the shadow-traveling) had basically spent every waking second in combat, and only when Gaia showed up did everything seem to disappear.

"The powers of Titans and Gods are great enough that our presence alone can drive off almost any monster." Gaia's voice cut through our conversation. "Of course, certain items will also do that; like an Aegis, the instrument of Pan, and the walking stick of Moses."

The last one whizzed clean over my head. Milo, however, immediately whipped out his staff and looked at it quizzically. "Who is this Moses?"

"Moses was a great son of Poseidon, and his walking stick is said to be indestructible, easy to carry for its chosen wielder, and can make a child of Poseidon have dominion over the ocean equal to and sometimes surpassing their father. Moses himself could wield the powers of the ocean a small bit better than my dear middle grandchild."

"So, Nico's dad is the youngest of the Big Three?" Rowan asked the Titan queen.

Gaia laughed warmly. "No, dear child. The 'Big Three' are actually the youngest of my grandchildren. Hades is in fact the eldest of the three brothers."

My dad was Kronos and Rhea's youngest, therefore Poseidon and Hades' baby brother… I almost fell off the bed I started laughing so hard.

"I suppose it is rather funny, but now is not the time for pleasantries. I know why you have come, and while I cannot answer your questions, I can send you to the only one who can." Gaia was calm and her voice was melodious, but it was easy to tell when she was serious.

"Great!" Nico flopped backwards on the poofy pillows. "Now where do we have to go?"

Gaia leaned against the doorway and cracked a small grin. "Alaska."

"Wait, isn't Alaska, like, really cold?" Rowan's eyes dashed around the room, scanning all of us.

Gaia just shook her head, sending her long, undone locks of black and green hair billowing over her shoulders.

"What did I say?" Rowan was genuinely confused, which made me laugh harder and Nico start laughing too. Milo seemed totally unaware of us though, his eyes were trained on the Titaness.

"We walk the path to the Black Empress now, don't we?"

Gaia nodded. "Pray she gives blessing to your quest, dear child of nature."

"What are you guys talking about?" I stood up and walked between Milo and Gaia.

"You'll know soon enough, granddaughter, and you will all need more power than you have to succeed in this journey." Gaia walked out of the little cottage and rounded a corner into a part of her Garden. We all followed silently.


	31. As sincere as text can be, on a Tuesday

It's been too long. To all of the readers who were dissappointed with my lack of updates, and eventually left The Trials to its unchanging grave, I sincerely apologize. After a long and painful hiatus, I'm finally willing and able to resume my writing. I'd hoped to try and draw a few people back with a brand new chapter, but thanks to a loss of computer, I have to rewrite it. Everyone who enjoyed reading The Trials from its inception to now, I hope I can try and hook you in again, with more developed writing, fewer typos, and an expansive story with more than a few twists and turns. From myself, and the friends who have chosen to help me keep this on track, we hope you'll let us back onto your screens, and enjoy the story we're so excited to tell.


	32. Chapter 25

The crowd was still deafening even after we were well into the building and sitting in the Sunz current R&R area. Nyx was stretched out on a sofa, I was slumped into an armchair, and Nico was pacing in front of the door.

"I don't understand. How are all these children of Pan showing up now, years after he faded and after they could've been any help against Kronos?" Nico turned towards us, as he said this.

"Not everyone goes to Camp Half-Blood hellcat, only those who have a strong enough aura to attract monsters without being able to defend against them." Nyx picked up a magazine on the table next to the couch and flitted through it.

"I don't trust it." He stopped pacing and looked at the Titan.

"I don't care." She dropped the magazine and leaned back farther, folding her hands behind her head and closing her eyes.

Nyx's relaxation didn't last long; we all perked up when the doorknob started jiggling. I could hear laughing from the other side. The band strode in and didn't even seem to care that a six foot tall son of Hades was standing in front of them. They just walked around him and started doing things around the room. Nyx pulled her legs back while Rueben sat at the foot of the couch and she stretched them out across his lap.

"I noticed you while Bluddy Hand was on-stage, realized we'd have to do a Call to clear the place out fast enough." He had an extremely thick British accent, but was still pretty easy to understand. "Who's ya uptight mate?"

"Nico, son of Hades," She gestured to me. "And Thalia, daughter of Zeus."

"Zeus, eh? Pleasure to meet the bossman's little girl." He stood up, took my hand and kissed it, his eyes fixed on mine. "What brings you lovely ladies to our show?"

"How many kids does Pan have?" I couldn't help but ask, for some reason, looking into his eyes made me forget courtesy and caution.

He smiled and looked away. "Yeah, she's a powerful one. Usually they just kiss me after that." He looked back to me. "Depends on the kind you want to know about, darling. The children of Pan will represent one of the five basest needs of our nature: companionship, territory, lust, nurturing, and curiosity."

The other three stopped what they were doing and stepped towards us. The blonde girl hooked her finger in the front of Nico's jeans and pulled him close to her. "Guess which one I am." She started caressing his neck and biting his ear. I have to say that the look on his face will never be surpassed as the funniest thing I've ever seen.

Nyx stood up and hugged blue hair, they sat down and started murmuring about I don't know what. She looked over to me and mouthed "companionship". The guy with the red goatee stood up and walked over to Rueben and I, glaring at me coldly.

"Territory, I'm guessing." I swallowed hard and sunk into my seat to avoid his luminescent gaze.

He smiled widely and shook his head. He slowly reached down past the chair into the crack between it and the table with the magazines and pulled out a groggy kitten. He proceeded to sit on the floor and play with the adorable fluff.

Rueben snapped his fingers next to my head, regaining my attention. "People aren't always what they seem, Thalia, daughter of Zeus, especially the children of the Wild. I am the oldest living child of curiosity, Rueben Dwayne Talley is the name, but you may call me Ridley. That's why looking into my eyes made you ask the first thing on your mind. If you looked into Garth's you'd feel the need to protect the people around you for a short time. Anya's gaze would make you feel like she'd been your best friend for you entire life, and Lilith's would make you feel like someone supercharged your libido… admittedly, not the worst sensation. The stronger the demigod, the easier it is to resist the effects."

"Why don't you have a territory?"

"To be frank, because they're like the barbarians of our society. There have been plenty of ragers throughout history, though I don't care to name them."

"How old are you? You only look about 25… make that 20."

"Haha, yeah, well, that's another Wild Child thing, the more we embrace the wild side of life, the younger we seem. I'm almost six hundred and eleven years old, and I've never looked a day over 30."

"Six hundred and eleven?"

"Don't be so loud about it."

"How old are the others?"

"Lilith is almost 84; she's the youngest of us. Garth is about 1400, he was born a bastard son of Pope Saint Gregory the Great. We're not quite sure how old Anyanka is, because she suffered amnesia before she met Garth and only gets occasional memories. We do know for sure that she's second generation. Her father fought for Alexander of Macedonia, but we don't know how long before or after that he had her. He was a rager, so his child would be the previous one in the cycle."

"I think I know a companionship child."

"Really, what's their name?"

"Milo Gena, we discovered him in San Francisco a few months ago. His eyes were like all of yours, but they faded to red after he drank out of some magical pond in Tartarus."

Ridley's brow darkened. "I've never heard of him."

"Is that a big deal?"

"You have no idea…" He stood up and pulled Lilith off of Nico. She'd managed to force him onto the floor and was straddling the middle of his chest with his hands pinned on the ground. He was helplessly struggling to get away from her and his eyes were closed so he couldn't see hers. "Now, now, Lilith, we mustn't force ourselves on guests. Besides, did you even get a look at him? Not at all interested in you." She frowned at him. "As in he isn't curious about other women because he already has one." He glanced back at me. "Is it you, love? I know I wouldn't mind going for a roll with you."

I could feel myself blushing, and I couldn't help but be a little bit angry at how casually Ridley seemed to approach the subject. "No, it isn't me." At least, I don't think it is.

Lilith slinked towards me and around the back of my seat. "How about you, then? Maybe I could help you release some tension." Gods, was her influence strong, and even her accent made was provocative, though I couldn't place it. I had to have a little argument with myself to shake my head, as her slender fingers played across my shoulders. "Pity. Haven't had any cute girls like you for a while."

As she slipped into a comfortable looking position beside Nyx and Anya, I felt a sharp pinch on my toe. "Ahh! What was…?" I looked down to see Garth's kitten had its little teeth wrapped around one of my left toes. Damn these dysfunctional shoes.

"Sorry. She likes you." Garth's voice was surprisingly high pitched, considering how large he was. He reminded me of an older man who once bought Luke and I lunch. He gently lifted the kitty by the scruff of her neck and she laid down in his lap.

Ridley sat down on the arm of the sofa and locked eyes with me. "Tell me more about this Milo."

Either I was in an open book mood, or he was using a lot of power, because without thinking I wound up regaling him with a story of the entire journey since I left Artemis. He didn't say a word, until I finished at Nyx's bedroom.

He looked at Garth for a moment, who gave a little shrug, then went over and whispered something to Anya, who nodded in turn. Finally, standing up straight and addressing Nyx, he spoke. "It seems you have a quest, and we may have a brother who has not been accounted for. With the titaness' permission, as well as that of your companions, we would join you in the searching of London."

Nyx gestured to Nico and I. "Up to them. I don't command any of you."

He shrugged at me. "What's the worst that could happen?" I shrugged back.

"Sounds like a plan, man." Ridley cracked a grin and clapped his hands together. Little did we know what deal we had really accepted.


End file.
